Re:Naruto
by Gamaholic2
Summary: What if Sasuke defected for more than revenge? What if Sakura got over him sooner? What if some had survived and others had died? Will it be better, the same, or worse? Find out as the story goes on. NaruSaku. Cannon.
1. A New Beginning

Naruto Remodeled

AN: This is my first attempt at a story, so I'm not sure if it'll be too good. I probably should've started with one-shots, but I decided to challenge myself. The pairing will be NaruSaku along with the other ones I thought would be most likely (ShikaTema, NejiTen, etc.) though most of these won't show until far in the future. This will follow the story, mostly, obviously with some changes. Sometimes the people may get out of character, but it won't be so far that it's ridiculous. Rated T for now, like the show it'll have a few references or substances probably not suited for younger readers. I plan on making this rather long, so it might, eventually, end up after the time skip, if that happens the story should go to M since there might be more adult content.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anime or manga, those belong to Musashi Kishimoto and the animation studio's staff and cast.

"**Kyuubi/****Inner Sakura"**

_Flashbacks_

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Written Words

It's just another day in Konoha: sunny, cheerful, busy, but today is special, especially for a noisy young blonde. He had whisker marks on his cheeks, yellow hair, wore an orange jacket with a thick blue stripe running along his zipper, and white stripes on either side of it, and a pair of orange sweat pants. If you took off the jacket there'd be a black muscle shirt, but that's rarely seen. Naruto was going back to the academy one final time to be assigned to a team and a Jonin Sensei. He was thinking of the day before:

_He's walking around the village, ignoring the looks he was getting. Many of the villagers have stopped calling him names and assaulting him_. _Now they are content with ignoring his presence, except when drunk so he keeps away from bars. Now, however, he couldn't care as much as normal because he has finally accomplished his goal of becoming a Shinobi, one step further to being Hokage. He'd been thinking about this when he noticed someone trying to hide from him while following him. After a while of this he told the person to show himself. A young boy came out from behind a cloth that was made to look like the fence. He had black hair, some sort of hat on his head, wore a yellow shirt and grey cargo shorts. Naruto recognized him as being the Old Man's grandson, Konohamaru. This didn't stop Naruto from yelling at him whenever he got too annoying. It didn't happen too much and the whole day was kind of fun. Naruto showed him his sexy jutsu, a naked, well-endowed female version of himself, and Konohamaru immediately liked it. Naruto momentarily thought it was wrong to show him after he dispelled the jutsu, he knew Konohamaru didn't truly understand the full idea of the jutsu, but quickly discarded the thought when he saw Konohamaru's excited expression._

He was brought out of his reminiscing when he realized he'd gotten to the classroom. It was already full with the only seat left being next to Sakura. He almost flipped for joy, but then he saw who she was next to, Sasuke Uchiha. Regardless, he sat down next to her a wide grin on his face. Sakura looked at him and almost did a double-take "What's he doing here I thought he flunked the test,' just thinking of it as a fluke, that they'd send him out as soon as they realized he was here, she went back to thinking of Sasuke. Not long after did Iruka enter the room and stand at the podium, looking, with pride in his eyes, around the room at the many new Shinobi. "Good morning graduates," he said searching for anything out of place. Sakura saw him look right at Naruto and he just smiled wider than when he entered 'So he has graduated, how'd he manage to do that in two days. Oh well, as long as he's not with my team I'll be okay,' she thought.

Iruka started calling out the teams, but she wasn't listening, being too busy thinking of Sasuke and her together. Then she heard a name she knew, "Sasuke Uchiha…" this was the moment she'd been waiting for, would she be on Sasuke-kun's team, or would she end up somewhere else. "…Sakura Haruno…" She immediately stood going "Yataaa!" **'Chyaa! In your face, Ino-pig!' **she looked at Ino, stuck her tongue out at her and made a v-sign, never noticing the grim figures next to her. Sasuke looked as calm and uncaring as usual, but on the inside he was most annoyed 'No, not one of the fan girls, they are so annoying, almost as bad as Naruto.' Naruto was depressed, his crush is on her crush's team, how could he get her to like him when she was with Sasuke. He had almost decided to give up on her until, "…and Naruto Uzumaki." It was like their emotions transferred from one to the other, now Naruto exclaimed "Yataaa!" and Sakura was depressed 'Now how can I get to Sasuke-kun with Naruto in the way."

Sasuke didn't change at all, even internally 'Really? Now the dead last? How do they expect me to get stronger if neither of my teammates are capable of giving me a challenge.' Iruka ignored each one of these outbursts, knowing full well what they were thinking, and announced "You three will be Team 7 and your Jonin Sensei will be Kakashi Hatake."

He then went on to the other teams "Team 8: Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata Hyuuga, and Shino Aburame; Jonin in Charge: Kurenai Yuhi…Team 10: Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, and Ino Yamanaka; Jonin in Charge: Assumed Sarutobi… That's all the teams; now sit quietly while you're taken out by your respective team leaders." Iruka finished speaking and opened the door to let in the Jonin. One by one the teams were taken out, Iruka saying his goodbyes and wishing them luck, until one team was left: Team Kakashi.

They waited…and waited…and waited. An hour later Iruka went out, then half an hour later came back in, then another half-hour later he told them he had to go or else he'd get in trouble for not reporting in to the Hokage and they were left completely alone. It was now about 11 and Kakashi still had not shown up. Naruto was incredibly bored and was about ready to start messing with Sasuke, then he thought 'Maybe this is a test, he could be watching us right now expecting us to do something,' he walked to the window to see if he could possibly get a glimpse of something out of place on the buildings or streets nearby. Not really surprised that he hadn't seen anyone of interest, 'Jonin should be able to hide in plain sight anyway,' then he had an idea. "It seems like he's not going to be here anytime soon I'm not waiting around anymore, this might be just something he likes to do, making people wait for him and watching what they do, because I'm sure he's watching us somewhere from outside, and I'm not about to become one of his victims so I'm going to the field outside to train," he started to walk out.

"But what if he comes and we're not here I don't want to anger him on the first day, and what makes you think that he's watching - Sasuke-kun where are you going," she said as she saw Sasuke get up and move towards the door.

"The dobe actually had a good idea, for once, and I thought that he might be watching us as well," Sasuke said, getting as close to a complement as possible with him.

"If you're so worried, Sakura, why don't you stay here and tell him where we are when he comes," Naruto suggested

"No way, I'm not going to sit here and look stupid when he asks me where you guys are," Sakura said.

"Then let's leave a note," Naruto concluded, already knowing what to do. He grabbed paper, a pencil, some tape and a chalk eraser. He wrote We're Training. and he stuck the paper to the top of the eraser, motioned for them to follow him out, and got the chair that the hall monitor used, and stood on it to close the door on the eraser. "There, now he gets the message and we get to laugh at him for falling for this and making us wait in the first place."

"I guess, but I'm not really sure he'll take it lightly," Sakura stated. **'Too bad! The bastard can go to hell for all I care.'**

As they walked to the field, a silver haired man stepped out of his hiding spot and jumped down to the road. 'That blonde kid actually did have a good idea, he's working on his own skills, and he got the other two to do it as well, which is to be expected. If what I know about them is true, Sasuke wouldn't have refused, and thus Sakura would go with since Sasuke was going. I really hope the kid actually thought of this when he made his decision, otherwise, it'd confirm what was true about him.' He thought this and started walking to the classroom, 'I'll let them have this.'

Meanwhile, they got to the field and Naruto picked one of the trees to practice his shuriken throwing. He missed with two out of the five he threw, one was almost at the top of the tree 'How the hell did he manage that,' Sasuke thought, one was near the bottom of the trunk, and the last one he actually managed to get around the area that was designated as a good hit zone. Sasuke came up next to him, using a tree that was just to the left of Naruto's, and threw his five, which all were good hits. Naruto, obviously annoyed, retrieved his shuriken and threw them again and again, each time getting worse and Sasuke just kept throwing his and never faltering. Eventually, Naruto had become really annoyed, and slightly intimidated, and was pretty close to pitching a fit.

Then his attention was drawn to some movement to the side of the field that wound to the front of the school, and he saw a man wearing a flak jacket, a mask, and a Leaf Headband that was tilted to cover his left eye. He walked straight to Naruto saying "Relax kid, quit tensing as your throw your shuriken, rock back when you grab at the next one, and lean forward a bit when you throw it, you don't want to use your arm when giving the throw power, and as you let go, flick your wrist towards your target," the silver-haired man said, 'you should have known this, but due to you playing hooky you missed those lessons,' he added in his mind. Naruto went through this in his head, taking his stance he noticed that he was tense and changed it a little to make it more relaxed. He moved his arm in an arc between his chest and the tree before him, letting his body move with this action. He took out some shuriken in his left arm, pulled his right arm in for one, leaning back a bit, then he leaned forward as he moved his arm and when he got to the right spot, he released the shuriken, flicking his wrist towards the center of the 'good hit zone' and allowing the shuriken to slip from his hand.

The shuriken flew from his hand in a sort of arc towards the tree and hit the good zone right in the center. Naruto looked back at the man with a happy expression, and saw the man nodding his head. Naruto then continued until the other four were embedded into the tree close to the first one. When he was done he excitedly retrieved his shuriken. "Thanks mister, does the same technique work with kunai, wait, who are you?" he asked only now questioning the guy's presence.

"I'm Kakashi Hatake, your Jonin instructor."

Now they found themselves on the roof of the academy after eating the lunches they packed earlier, Kakashi on the railing, students on the steps. "Now, I've kept you waiting long enough, let's say we get to know each other now," Kakashi said. "And what do you want us to say, sensei?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi almost sweat dropped "Introduce yourself, name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, whatever you want to say, say it…I guess you need an example, I'll go first. I'm Kakashi Hatake, I don't feel like sharing what I like, I dislike many things, dreams for the future…hmmm…and I have many hobbies. Your turn pinky."

Now it was their turn to sweat drop, but got the idea anyway. "I'm Sakura Haruno, what I like is…" she looks at Sasuke, "…my hobbies include…" looks at Sasuke twice, "…my dreams for the future are…" looks at Sasuke and giggles, then suddenly turns serious, "…and what I dislike is Naruto."

Kakashi and Naruto did sweat drop that time. 'Well, this team is off to a good start,' Kakashi thought. "Small, dark and quiet, it's your turn," he said.

Sasuke paused a bit, "My name is Sasuke Uchiha, I don't like many things, I like power, my hobby is training, and my dream is more of an ambition, one that I will make it reality, and that is to kill a certain someone."

'This one is going to be troublesome,' Kakashi thought. "Blondie, you're last."

Naruto immediately began talking, "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, what I like is ramen, the Ichirakus, and my forehead protector, what I dislike is the three minutes it takes to cook the ramen, being ignored, and Sasuke-teme, my hobbies are eating ramen and training for my dream to become Hokage, so that the villagers will have to respect me and will stop ignoring me and treating me like dirt."

'This kid seems to be very simple, and has very big plans, like the Uchiha, and seems to be a bit more down to earth than Sakura, though I did notice the look he gave her when he talked of his 'likes',' Kakashi thought. "Well then, now we know more about each other I guess I can let you go do whatever. Just know that I want to see you at 5 o'clock at training grounds 3, oh and don't eat, or you'll throw up." With that Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sasuke got up and started walking home before Sakura had a chance to react and so was gone before she got up. Looking a bit disappointed, she also started to go home. Naruto wanted to say 'Can I walk you home', but knew that she'd say no, so he stayed quiet. He really didn't have much to do now, so he just sat there. Then he remembered that technique Kakashi told him about and he got to thinking 'I think that was kind of text book, the way he said it made it seem like I should already know this, maybe I missed something when I ditched class one of those times.' He got up and went back to the training field to continue to practicing the technique.

Close to dusk, a full six hours later, he had mastered the technique and could now throw five and hit everything he aimed at. He started walking home, thinking along the way: 'I think I've been going about this Shinobi thing wrong, I kept thinking that it would just come to me like it seems to do with Sasuke-teme. Now it seems my problem wasn't that I didn't try to do it, I just didn't try to learn things that would help me do it. Now, I don't have to memorize the techniques and can just do them until I get it right continually, but to do that I need to go to the library and they don't like it when I'm in there, they'll just chase me out.' He mulled this problem over until he got to his apartment. 'I need to get Sasuke-teme or Sakura-chan to do it. Sasuke wouldn't and I won't let him know, and Sakura-chan isn't likely to want to help me.' He ate a lot of ramen so that he wouldn't be too hungry in the morning, showered, and got dressed for bed. 'I'll think of something tomorrow, I have to sleep now or I'll be too tired in the morning.' He then curled up in his sheets and waiting to get to sleep.

As Sasuke was walking home from the meeting, he began thinking 'So far, my teammates seems like they're going to be getting in the way of my goal, especially Sakura, she's just like those other fan girls, they neglect their physical training just so I'd "go out" with them. Why would they think that I want to date someone who I'd have to protect because they can't help themselves, even in the best circumstances? What is it about me that they like so much, anyway? I can do everything five times better than anyone else my age, if that's it then that's not liking me, that's liking what I can do. They completely ignore my actions towards others and only focus on my abilities. It seems that ignoring them makes it worse because they say it's cool and it means that I'm shy. That's not even close to what it means and if they need to ask then it's not worth my time to tell them.'

He got to the Uchiha Estate and turned to head down the street his house is on. 'Sakura definitely can't help me with my goal. Naruto, however…' Sasuke pauses remembering the time spent on the training field '…it seems that his only problem is that he's stupid, that shuriken technique was one of the first taught when we began that training and it appears that he had ditched that day, like so many times before and after the fact, pulling one of the many pranks that set him on bad terms with the academy kids and the villagers. However, whereas the kids are only annoyed with the pranks and misplaced cockiness, the villagers seem to be more angry at him, and I don't think it's the pranks that have caused it, because they were all minor, kind of clever, I must admit, and easily erased and forgotten. If it went deeper than that then Naruto must have done something pretty bad, and if he did I'm sure someone would talk about it. There were even some women on graduation day that had started talking about him and one hushed the other before the other could reveal what Naruto was or what it was he did.'

He got home and trained for a bit. He worked on his taijutsu until the tree he was hitting split, it wasn't very big, but it still took a few hours of him imagining that it was Itachi's face, then he practiced hitting 9 different targets using shuriken or kunai, the same one Itachi showed him where one target was in a blind spot behind a boulder. Sasuke accomplished hitting the target just recently, but it's not consistent or quick and so he's just getting used to releasing the 9th and 10th shuriken or kunai at the right time. After that he practiced his ninjutsu: making hand signs faster and new ways to use the jutsu. He did this until he was too drained of chakra to stand. When he was able to stand back up he went inside the house and started looking through the pantry for some suitable dinner. He quickly realized that what he had wouldn't be enough to make anything and so he needed to go to the market. He went to his room, took out some money from his safe and started walking out of the house.

Sakura lived a little while away from the academy and so it took her almost an hour, with a few distractions, but her main thought being of her and Sasuke getting together and the future they'd have. Once inside she took off her shoes and started towards the stairs when her mother called to her from the kitchen "Sakura come and help with the cleaning since you're home so early."

Sakura groaned and reluctantly went into the kitchen where she saw her mom doing the dishes. "Hey Mom," she said as she came up next to her and reached for a towel and a wet plate "how was your day today?"

"Oh the usual, laundry and vacuuming were the only things to do so I was finished quickly, anyway, how was your day, who's in your team and who's supervising it?" she asked.

"I'm in team 7, the Jonin Sensei is Kakashi Hatake" she began, her mother slightly tensing as she said Kakashi, 'I've heard he's failed every other team that he's had the opportunity to train,' but without letting Sakura notice it, "I'm teammates with Sasuke-kun," she went on with a slight blush on her cheeks and a tone in her voice making it obvious what she thought about the idea.

"Really, you mean that Uchiha boy you've been crushing on ('With about 10 other girls your age'), you must be really excited about that!" her mother said with a sort of sarcastic tone that Sakura didn't notice.

"Yeah, I was…" Sakura paused, a bit embarrassed by talking to her mother about it, "…but then they added some really annoying kid who always gets in the way of him and I," she said, her tone leaving no doubt about what she thought of the other team member.

"Really, who is it."

"He's really annoying, ditches a lot to pull off various pranks around the village and is the dead last because of it, his name's Naruto."

Her mother almost dropped the plate she was cleaning, but regained her composure almost as soon as she lost it. "N-naruto U-Uzumaki, w-why did they put him with your team, I thought you said he failed…again."

"Iruka said that they made up the teams based on each person's grades, Sasuke-kun had the highest and Naruto had the lowest, and apparently he was able to pull off some sort of makeup exam, why what's wrong with him," she asked having noticed her mother's slight reaction to the name.

"O-oh nothing really, I just heard about him putting paint on the Hokage Monument's faces, anyway, I've got the rest of this covered, why don't you go to your room, I'll call you when dinner's being made."

"Okay," Sakura said quickly going to her room before her mother changed her mind. 'That was weird, the only thing I said was that Naruto was on my team, she didn't flinch when I said a troublemaker was on my team, only when she learned it was Naruto, sure he's annoying, but it's not a big deal, it must be more than what she's letting on. Oh well, he doesn't seem too bad, so I guess it's okay.' She thought this while she remembered what happened today. 'Why did Naruto and Sasuke-kun think that Kakashi-sensei was watching us, when I didn't, well I understand that Sasuke-kun did, but how did Naruto, the dead last, think of it when I didn't, and it seems that he came up with something that Sasuke-kun agreed with. None of the girls have been able to make Sasuke-kun do anything other than walk away or reply with a "hn" and ignore them. Then when Naruto practices his shuriken throwing, failing every single time with each try getting worse and worse, then one phrase from sensei and he's immediately two-thirds as good as Sasuke-kun, I wouldn't be able to do it immediately, and I've even known the technique longer than him.'

She thought about this for a few moments longer, but it failed to interest her when she looked to her book shelf and saw the book that she'd been reading: Basic Ninjutsu and Tips. She got it and started reading from it seeing things like Kekkei Genkai, and Chakra Control, and Element Release. She stopped on chakra control, remembering what Iruka said when they started practicing the ninjutsu.

"_Now let's get started with the next aspect of being a Shinobi: using ninjutsu. It's the art of controlling your spiritual energy, or chakra. You do this by making hand signs like this," he made a few hand signs and, suddenly, a second Iruka had appeared next to him. Everyone was in such awe of it they almost missed the second part. One of the Irukas was engulfed in a puff of smoke and out came the Third Hokage, but when he spoke he sounded like Iruka. "See, cool huh, it's also important to know that you need a certain amount of chakra control for any jutsu, as in you can't put too much or too little chakra in a jutsu, or else it'll come out like this:" he did the first few signs again and another Iruka appeared, but this one looked sick and it didn't move whatsoever._

She closed the book and put it back 'That's why Naruto couldn't use the jutsu properly, he has poor chakra control, maybe I should tell him about it tomorrow, especially since—wait, what am I thinking, why would I want to help Naruto, he's never helped me before, and he's always been getting in the way of me and Sasuke,' she quickly discarded the thought.

Just then she heard her mother call her down, looked quickly at the clock and saw that she had been reading for a few hours, being a slow reader, but a good memorizer because of it. She went out and when she got to the steps she could hear her parents talking, or kind of arguing as their tones were slightly antagonistic towards each other, she moved in closer to hear what was being said without being seen as well. "I think we should get the Hokage to reform the teams, I don't want our daughter being on the same team as that boy," she heard her mother say and knew it was about Naruto.

"Come on, I don't think we should be condemning the boy so soon, it sounds like he just wants to be noticed, and it's working. It's not like he can help being what he is, and it's not like that part makes him bad for anyone to be around. The thing's not going to escape, I mean it's the Fourth's own jutsu, so it should be pretty strong. I also don't think the Hokage is even going to listen to such a request for such misplaced reasons. I think the kid's more valuable to the village anyway, the village is kept safe due to his containing it and he can use it to protect the village further, if you did your research you'd know that those people can utilize it as an extension to their chakra reserves, and even use the chakra to enhance their abilities. Sakura will be fine especially with someone like Kakashi as the leader. He famous for being one of the top ANBU captains, so I'm sure that if this team appeals to him, which it has much to do with teamwork, then she'll be fine," her father reasoned.

"Okay, but if I hear that that boy has done something to her then I'm going to make the Hokage reform the teams," her mother said cracking her knuckle (something Sakura did when making threats as well).

They stopped talking and so Sakura went into the kitchen, "Yeah, Mom, what is it?"

"I need you to get some groceries, I can't make the full meal without these things," she hands Sakura a shopping list with about ten things on it, as well as quite a bit of money.

"Okay, I'll go and get them," Sakura says as she walks out, puts on her shoes and makes her way to the market. She starts thinking of what her dad said 'What is it that Naruto is, and what has mom so worried. Apparently, Naruto is containing something that would be bad for the village if it isn't, and he can use it to his advantage instead. What is it though, it sounded like something terrible, and why is it "inside" Naruto, or how is it? He was careful not to put a name to it, too, and what does the Fourth have to do with it?' She mulled over these questions for a while then decided 'I'll go to the library tomorrow to look it up, I'm sure I can find something there.'

She was brought away from her personal questions as she neared the market. She took out the list and went to the various stalls, paying for the things she needed. She was just about to leave when she saw something that made her totally forget what she was doing, or, to be specific, someone: Sasuke. "Sasuke-kun!" she yelled making him turn around.

'What the hell is she doing here?' he thought a little bit annoyed that she was here. 'I guess it can't be helped,' he thought resignedly.

"Sasuke-kun, what are you doing here," she said excitedly.

He just held up his bags of food.

"Oh, yeah, well if you have anything else to get, I'll walk with you," she said.

"hn," was his reply and he continued along his way to the stalls he needed to go to, which were, she remembered, stalls she still needed to go to. As they walked, she talked about how good it was to be a Shinobi, how she was relieved that she didn't have to do any homework, or memorize anything, or take tests, or have to stay someplace where the only thing keeping you sane is the occasional interruptions from the other students: Iruka noisily waking a student who nodded off during class, someone throwing something across the room and making a huge mess of the classroom if it hit a pile of stacked papers or someone who reacts badly, causing things to fall over or a fight to break out, and, most of all, the times where Iruka has to leave to go in search of Naruto, thus allowing everyone to take a break from the learning and socialize, and the eventual return of Iruka holding a Naruto either flailing about animatedly or just hanging there in shame, and once he was in a headlock and Iruka was giving him a noogie, which was a punishment as well as a sign of affection. All Sasuke would do was occasionally "hn" when it seemed appropriate.

They had all their groceries and Sasuke was heading home, Sakura followed until she felt that she got too far from her house, already thinking that she took too long getting the items. "It was fun being with you Sasuke-kun, but I have to get these back home otherwise my mom will kill me," she say starting to turn towards her own home, then she heard something she didn't expect: "Sakura, wait."

She turned back around to see Sasuke was staring at her. For a moment she thought he was going to say "I enjoyed this time, too, I'd like to do it more". However, what he did say caught her so off guard: "What do you think of Naruto?"

She, for some reason, was totally annoyed by that question, and so replied "Naruto is an annoying pest, he's always asking me on dates, and he's so hard headed that he can't realize when he's overstepped his boundaries, and he's always pulling stupid pranks," she then changed her tone to a 'I know why' kind and said "it's probably because he doesn't have any parents, you know, he doesn't have anyone to yell at him for doing things like that. If I tried doing those things, my parents would ground me forever—" she was about to continue, until she saw a sort of death glare being directed at her from Sasuke. He's only given that look to a few people, one of them being Naruto, though it was more a challenge to them, this one was full of anger.

"Being alone…is a more painful feeling than it is to be scolded by a parent! Naruto even has people scolding him and ignore for no apparent reason, other than existing!," Sasuke almost yelled at her.

She was so caught off-guard that all she could do was reply "Wh-what are you saying Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke replied with "You're… annoying" and just walked away.

Sakura was so close to crying, after the initial shock of his words, and turned and ran home. As she neared her house she tried regaining her composure so she could get through dinner without alerting her parents, one of the reasons why she doesn't wear make-up anyway. She thought that she was good and entered the home saying "I'm back, sorry I'm late, but I met someone there and the time got away from me."

Her parents replied, though she didn't hear because she was replaying that moment in her head over and over. Dinner went by quickly, she remembers having a conversation with her parents, but not what they actually said. She was excused to her room and she walked as casually as possible up the stairs, but when she closed the door she almost immediately started crying, as quietly as possible so that her parents wouldn't hear.

'Why would Sasuke-kun say those things, all I did was answer his question of what I think about Naruto. Wait, I did say that his problem was his parents being non-existent. That's what set him off, he had his parents taken away from him, by the brother who was, apparently, a great source of pride for the village, and from those times that he picked up Sasuke-kun, it looked like they enjoyed each other's company.' She thought of this as she got ready for bed.

'Naruto… why was I so annoyed by Sasuke-kun's asking what I thought of him? Was it the other times he got between us and now he wasn't even here and he was getting in the way. However, if what Sasuke-kun says is true, then Naruto is annoying to gain the villager's attention, not to be in the way of anything.' She got out of the shower and put on her pajamas.

'I think I need to be nicer to Naruto. He can be annoying, but were the attempts to get to me just his way of showing affection? And if so, does that mean that he actually likes me, and isn't just trying to mess with me and Sasuke-kun? I'm not going to allow him to get me on a date, but I could at least be less of a bitch to him. However, that is best left tomorrow, right now I need to get to sleep or else I'll be too tired for the 'mission' tomorrow.' She curled up under her covers and was soon fast asleep.

AN: Well, that was long 8 pages is a good length, I think. I hope I didn't let the characters go too far out of character, I know Sasuke and Kakashi were a bit out. However, it was surprisingly fun writing this, I think I'll continue doing this. I actually researched some of the information, like the shuriken throwing and the target hitting thing Itachi showed Sasuke before defecting. I still am not sure why that's significant, I mean, what use is it, is there a formation he can counter using it, is it just for show, all I know is that it's useful to be able to nullify a blind spot so the one behind the boulder is good to train. Remember, this was my first post, so it probably won't fully satisfy someone's 'hunger' for a good fanfic. Also, this was fun to write so even if I get some flames I'll probably continue this story. I know I didn't have Kyuubi say anything, but it's so I can just copy the disclaimer and key. Anyway, review and, if possible, someone answer some questions, like: who are Sakura's parents, and what the 9 target blind spot training thing is for, and did I put anything in here that anyone thought was funny, even slightly.


	2. The Test

AN: Second chapter, woot! Okay, the first one was fun, and with those reviews I didn't think I'd get (well, so soon, I should say), I'm more excited now than before so this one might be better, especially if I follow their advice. I fixed whatever spelling mistakes I could find, thanks to Born From A NaruSaku Lemon, and if there's any more I would like to be informed so I can fix them, especially since Word doesn't know some of these words itself. I'll try to add more humor this time and we shall see how good I am with fighting scenes.

**I have made a HUGE mistake:** Naruto's jacket has white along the collar, blue at the shoulders, and the stripe along the zipper is supposed to be orange, not blue. I don't know if anyone noticed, or thought much of it, but if you did then I'm sorry. Unless if I get a couple of people saying he needs new clothes, just imagine Naruto's actual anime jacket.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anime or manga, those belong to Musashi Kishimoto and the animation studio's staff and cast.

"**Kyuubi/Inner Sakura"**

_Flashbacks_

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Written Words

Actual story length: total – 9,485

* * *

><p>It's the next day, and three young genin awake at four in the morning to get ready for their sensei's assignment. They shower, put on clean clothes, they don't eat and they pack a lunch. They leave their homes and start moving directly towards training grounds nine. Naruto and Sakura arrive looking groggy and Sasuke strolls on in looking like he got up long before then. Naruto sort of brightens up when Sakura arrives, though. "Hey Sakura-chan."<p>

'How can he sound so cheerful when he's just as tired as I am,' she thinks, but replies "Hi Naruto," as she starts to remember last night and so tries to be as nice as possible to him, and tries to avoid Sasuke's gaze, though it is the one that he usually wears, she's afraid that he'll be glaring at her.

They stand around for a while, it gets to be around 5:30 and Naruto decides to try and nap, lying back against a tree trunk. At 6 he's sound asleep and Kakashi still has yet to show up. 'Is this going to be a regular thing with him,' Sakura wonders as she remembers the day before, and the hours of waiting. She decides that he's going to be a while and so rests against a tree, too, and is soon fast asleep. Sasuke, however, continues to stand and wait.

The sun begins to rise over the tree tops and Kakashi still isn't there. The only sound to be heard is the sound of birds chirping and some herbivores walking to the river and drinking. It nears seven and Sasuke is starting to get annoyed. 'This is the second time; aren't Jounin supposed to be on time? Why'd he tell us to wake up and be here early, if he was just going to keep us waiting.' He looks at the other two sleeping forms to either side of him. 'If I didn't have to wake these two up later, I'd go to sleep as well. Damn it Kakashi, would you just get here,' he yelled in his head.

Eight o'clock and the sun has cleared the tree tops and the day has officially begun. At this time the villagers are doing their morning rituals, going to work, and the academy should be starting summer school. Naruto started to stir, the sunlight shining in his eyes through a hole in the canopy of the leaves above. He stands and stretches, relaxing his muscles and getting his blood flowing until it seems that he's up to his usual energetic standard. "Is Kakashi here yet?" He asks Sasuke only receiving a slight head shake. "Argh! What is with him, he tells us to be here early, but he can't be bothered to show up on his own schedule." He says, his voice full of annoyance, and then he sees Sakura is asleep and immediately gets quiet. 'She looks so cute when she's asleep,' he thinks as he slightly blushes and looks away from her.

Sakura sleeps for a few minutes more, and then she starts to open her eyes and close them, until she can will them to stay up. Then she looks around and sees that Kakashi still isn't here, then she sees Sasuke, who is staring straight forward, almost never blinking, she notices Naruto last. His head is faced away from her, but his eyes keep going from her to forward back to her. Strangely, she starts to feel a bit self conscious, something that only happens when she gets glares from the other girls, or Sasuke appears to be watching her.

She stands up, looks at the sun, and can tell that it's around nine o'clock. They wait for a few more minutes, and then Naruto sees the man they've been waiting for. "Kakashi-sensei! What's with making us wait for so long, huh, why did you say five when you just arrive four hours later!," He yells at him.

The silver haired man just shrugged and said "You see, I saw a little old lady trying to take some groceries home, and I—" he started, but was interrupted by "Yeah right, like there'd be an old lady walking around at five in the morning," Naruto yelled.

Kakashi shrugs giving them what looks like a sheepish grin (You can't really tell by just looking at the eyes) under that mask. "Well, none of that matters anymore, I'm here and we can get started. Put your lunches near those three polls," he orders as he walks past them to the center of the field.

They did as they were told and focused on Kakashi. "Okay, today I'm going to test your abilities as a team. Your goal is to get these bells from me before noon," he holds up two silver bells and attaches them to his belt, "you are not going to be able to get them from me unless if all of you come at me with the intent to kill, " he says.

Sakura, however, sees a problem "Sensei there are only two bells, though."

"That's right, only two of you are going to get bells."

"But, what about the third one."

"The person, who does not get the bell, is then disqualified to be a Shinobi and goes back to the academy." Kakashi says casually.

"What!" Naruto exclaims, "what do you mean one of us is supposed to go back, that's totally unfair, what's the point of the graduation exam if one of us is going to go back anyway."

"The graduation exam was just a way to see who was most capable of becoming a Shinobi. This is the actual test to see if you are ready to become a Shinobi. Half the exam is a written, so there's a chance that someone was able to cheat their way through without knowing half of what they need, and there are a number of physical tests, so a student could pass half of them and earn a passing grade. This survival test needs every one of those skills to be used in combination and that requires the knowledge you should have gained from reviewing for the graduation exam."

Sasuke remains as unfazed as ever, 'Hmph, I have nothing to worry about then.'

Sakura thinks 'I know the techniques and the jutsus I was taught, but I'm almost totally useless when it comes to using them.

Naruto is panicking 'I don't know any of the crap they taught us though, and what I do know I can't perform correctly, I'm completely hosed.'

"Oh, and another thing, the one who doesn't have either bell by noon..." Kakashi begins snapping everyone from their thoughts and focusing on him as ominous music starts to play, "…doesn't get lunch."

Very dramatic music starts playing, screen is cut into sections and each section holds Sasuke's passive expression, Sakura's surprised reaction, and finally, Naruto's horrified look of hopelessness.

It was about 9:30 and so they had less than three hours to get a bell. "Now, I'll count to five and we'll begin. 1…2…3...4…5 Go!"

Immediately they shot away in different directions into the trees, except for Naruto. "Alright, it's just you and me, Kakashi, one-on-one." Naruto said to Kakashi, who had taken a book out of his pouch and started reading it. "Hey, put away that book and face me."

"I won't even need to look away from this book, you won't be able to touch me," Kakashi stated.

Naruto wouldn't take this and so started charging at Kakashi. As he got close enough, he swept up his foot to kick him in the face, which Kakashi easily ducked under. Naruto brought down his foot, making him face the other way, and swept his other foot level with Kakashi's crouched throat. Kakashi leaned backwards, balancing his entire body by using his legs, and jumped just high enough so that, he dodges Naruto's arm swinging at his legs so as to pick them up and fold them into Kakashi's chest and attempt to pin him enough to allow Naruto to get a bell. Kakashi straightens up and lands on his feet lithely. Naruto, in annoyance, threw a punch at Kakashi, instead of trying to grab a bell. Kakashi disappears and appears crouched behind Naruto. Naruto was so amazed at his speed that he didn't move at all.

"That was unexpectedly good Naruto, however, you let your emotions get in the way and that screwed you up," he says closing his book and combines his hands with his index fingers pointing slightly upwards, "**One Thousand Years of Death**," Kakashi loudly says as he stabs Naruto in the ass.

Naruto flies into the air, screaming his head off from the sudden and horrible, pulsating pain coming from his ass. Sasuke watches this from his hiding spot in a tree, almost feeling the pain Naruto is experiencing, slightly wincing despite his usual success at hiding his emotions. 'Damn, I never would have thought something like that could hurt someone so much,' he sweat drops, 'I got to be careful not to let that happen to me.'

Kakashi stands up and has his back turned towards where Sasuke would be so he thought this was a good opportunity. He throws some shuriken at Kakashi, and quickly leaps from his hiding spot, charging at Kakashi, though making as little sound as possible. The shuriken reaches Kakashi and gets him in the back, Sasuke not too far away, and as Kakashi falls Sasuke grabs at one of the bells. He smirks at his triumph and is about to gloat about this being too easy, but Kakashi disappears in a puff of smoke and when it clears, a log with several shuriken in it is in his place, Sasuke looks at the bell he took as it also disappears and in its place is a piece of bark. "Did you really think it would be that easy," comes Kakashi's voice from behind.

Sasuke quickly turns around, feeling a bit of fear as he remembers Naruto's fate, but Kakashi was away in a tree still reading his book. Sasuke then feels a little bit of anger for having been scared of what Kakashi might do to him. He jumps at Kakashi, throwing a few kunai and shuriken as he closes the distance between them. While reading, he grabs a kunai, moves a bit to his left, dodging the kunai, and deflecting the shuriken. Kakashi jumps down from the branch before Sasuke can reach him. Sasuke lands on the branch and jumps after him, bringing his arms down to hit Kakashi on the head with the force of his upper body and the fall. Kakashi takes one long stride and is completely missed. Sasuke lands and tries to tackle him, but he pivots on his right foot so that Sasuke just goes past him. Sasuke sweeps his foot where Kakashi's feet are and Kakashi hops over it. Sasuke jumps, flips and sticks his leg out so that it would come down on Kakashi's head, however Kakashi puts up his arm so that it lands one his forearm, where there is a light metal weight under the sleeve, Sasuke uses this to increase his height a little and has his foot come around to the right side of his head making Kakashi stop reading for a second to block it. Sasuke flips upside down, grabs Kakashi's left arm and propels himself towards the bells, making Kakashi move his right and hit Sasuke's hand away, using the book to do so, but not before Sasuke is able to just touch the bell. He flips, lands on his feet, and Kakashi jumps away from him. "That was pretty close, Sasuke, if I hadn't had the book, you might have gotten a bell," Kakashi praised him.

Sakura, watching from a place in the bushes, silently applauds Sasuke. 'Of course Sasuke-kun would be able to get closer than Naruto,' she looks to where Naruto landed and sees that he's not there. 'Where'd he go, I thought he passed out from the pain,' but she doesn't give it much thought as Sasuke starts charging at Kakashi again. He lets loose a volley of shuriken and starts making hand seals. Kakashi jumped to the right, and while in the air, Sasuke gets within five feet of him, finishes making signs, breathes in some air and places his index and thumb over his mouth in a ring. He lets out the air and out comes a ball of fire that engulfs Kakashi as he lands. Sakura almost screamed, 'Why would Sasuke try something like that, he just killed Kakashi-sensei,' she panicked as the fireball dissipates and there's no Kakashi. She turns away from the sight, afraid to look anymore. She decides to go out and talk to Sasuke, who should be a little freaked out as he realizes what he had done. She jumps out and sees that Sasuke isn't there anymore. 'Did he run away,' she thought knowing that she would if she had just killed her sensei. She goes to find him and turns towards the trees, only to stop and stare at the sight before her.

Sasuke starts feeling a bit bad about just incinerating his sensei. Not even he can keep totally calm as he realizes he had just killed someone for the first time. He runs a bit into the tree line, and then he stops. 'Wait, there's no way that Kakashi could have been killed by that, a Jounin would never succumb to such an attack,' he looks back at the burn spot he created. 'But then where the hell—,' suddenly he was grabbed around the ankles and quickly pulled into the ground as Kakashi jumps out. "Thought you had me for a moment, huh? It's good you realized before I came out, wouldn't want you to seem too gullible." He says as he jumps away faster than Sasuke could see.

'Damn it, why did I believe it in the first place, *sigh* even if I realized sooner I wouldn't have seen that coming, at least I didn't end up like Naruto.' He sits there for a few moments, trying to get free, but not being able to do much other than breath. Then he sees Sakura run up to the burnt area of earth, she looks around a little, starts running towards him, but stops twenty feet from him. "Sakura, you need to help me get out of this." He says casually.

Sakura is stunned saying in a low voice "Sasuke…" then she get louder as she starts to panic "Sasuke is just a head, and he's still talking," she yells and then passes out.

Sasuke sweat dropped 'Well, that went well,'

Naruto had passed out from the pain in his ass before he hit the ground. Later, he groggily regained consciousness. As he woke up, the pain, not as bad as before, but still very uncomfortable and he groaned a lot as he stood up. He saw that Sasuke and Kakashi were battling a little ways away from him. Not wanting Kakashi to do that ever again, he started walking into the trees. He went a ways into the forest and decided it would be a good spot to hide while the pain subsided. He scrambled up a tree and sat up there, and was there for a little bit, the pain going down more. Then he heard someone scream, and immediately stood up, but then he figured it was Sakura and Sasuke had been beaten. A while later, he heard someone approaching, and hid as much as was possible from the way he had just come. A few more moments later and he sees Kakashi walking by, looking around in search of something, probably Sakura he thinks for a moment, but remembers the scream and figured it was more safe to assume Kakashi was after him. He waits for Kakashi to walk very far away from his spot and silently climbs down the tree. He walks back along the way that Kakashi came, making sure he makes as little sound as possible. As he's walking, though, he sees something shine to his left, and goes to investigate. There on the ground was one of the silver bells he was supposed to get. "Alright! It's mine!" he says running at it. However, as soon as he was within reach he heard something snap and then he felt a rope wrap around his ankle and he was picked up into the air and bounces a bit before he goes to rest hanging upside down 5 feet from the bell.

"I hadn't really expected you to actually fall for that, but it's still a bit amusing,' Kakashi strolls in front of Naruto and picks up the bell, putting it back on his belt.

"Hey! That's no fair Kakashi-sensei, put me down," Naruto yells at him.

"Sorry, kid, no can do, you'll have you get yourself down."

"But, I don't remember that jutsu."

"Then untie it yourself, I still have one other person to incapacitate before noon, so see ya."

"Wait, no, sensei," Naruto says in a very whiney voice.

Kakashi just walks off.

Naruto groans loudly, and then sees the three poles with their lunches on them as well as Sasuke who's tied around one of the poles. 'Hah, Sasuke failed, too, well, I'm not going to get a bell now, but if I eat my lunch now, he can't do anything about it,' he then sets to untie the knot (probably should used a kunai…oh well).

Sakura starts to regain consciousness and sits up. 'Wow, what happened,' then she remembered what made her pass out and quickly looked to see that Sasuke's head wasn't there. 'Oh than Kami, I thought Kakashi had killed him,' she gets up and moves towards the forest.

She walks in the tree line and goes along it, trying to conceal herself from anyone inside and outside the forest. She turns onto a little path and hears someone moan "Sakura" she hears Sasuke's voice around a bush. She goes around it to find that Sasuke had many kunai and shuriken embedded in him. This time her reaction is immediate, yelling "Sasuke" and passing out again. Kakashi is in the bushes near her and is a bit disappointed as he releases his genjutsu. 'She didn't even put up a slight resistance. This one seems to need the most work.' He picks her up and moves her unconscious body over to the three poles where Naruto is about to start eating his lunch.

Naruto freed himself, momentarily thinking 'A kunai would've been faster, damn it,' then he starts making his way to the food. He got half-way there before he heard someone scream. 'Kakashi got to her, I need to hurry,' he thinks as he starts to run to his boxed lunch. He got it open, and readied his chop sticks, then a blur came by and there wasn't a lunch on his lap anymore. Kakashi appeared next to him holding the box. 'That was kind of clever,' he thought as he put down Sakura near the left-most pole. He looks up at the sun and sees that the sun is directly above their heads and says "Times up."

He unties Sasuke and ties Naruto to the center pole instead. He walks to where they can easily see him, "Well, that wasn't as poor as I thought it would be, however," Kakashi says suddenly turning serious, and slightly angry, "none of you were able to see the concept of the exercise."

"Of course we did, all we had to do was get a bell from you anyway we possibly could," Naruto complained.

"But you didn't do everything you could, that's the point, you only had to do one thing in order to overwhelm me, and it seems you still don't know what it is. Look around you, what is there that you could have taken advantage of?" Kakashi yelled at them.

All of them pause to look around, the answer was so obvious that none of them wanted to admit it, or, in Naruto's case, didn't believe it to be true.

"The solution to the entire problem was one simple thing: Team work. Why do you think they put you into three-man _**teams**_, I'm sure it's not something you've never heard of. Shinobi are unable to do everything themselves, and that's especially true for newly graduated genin like you. You two…" he addresses Naruto and Sasuke by looking at them, "…were able to catch me off-guard long enough to get a bell from me, and if you worked together, you'd both have a bell. **And you**…" he looks at Sakura, "…didn't do anything, because you were ignoring Naruto and admiring Sasuke. You sat back and watched them and you didn't lift a finger, you didn't even try to think of a way to get a bell from me, I was sure that someone like you would at least do that, but no, I guess I was wrong. I am going to let you eat, and after that, we'll see if you have enough brains to actually do something effective. Also, Naruto, you don't get any lunch because you tried eating before noon."

He disappears in a puff of smoke and they're left alone feeling stupid. Shortly into their lunches Naruto's stomach begins to growl. They ignore it for a while, but it does it again, more loudly.

"Oh this is nothing, I can go weeks without food, I'll be fine," Naruto says, then his stomach growls again and he looks almost sick.

Sasuke, looking resigned, holds up his lunch in an obvious sign that he wants Naruto to have it.

"Sasuke-kun, what are you doing, sensei said that Naruto doesn't get lunch," Sakura said.

"If we let him fight like this, we're never going to get the bells. He'll be too weak to be useful, and I am not going to be sent back to the academy because of…" he pauses, looking at Sakura, making it obvious what he was going to say, then he rephrases it "…after coming this far and finally being out of it, so Naruto needs to eat something."

Sakura looks at her own lunch, and decides that Sasuke's right and offers Naruto her lunch (probably because of what Kakashi said and what Sasuke was about to say).

"Sakura-chan…"

"Look, just take it, I'm not even hungry, so take it," she said, embarrassed.

"Thanks Sakura-chan, ehhh, but I can't, I'm tied up so you're going to need to feed me," Naruto says, also a bit embarrassed, but with a hint of pleasure.

"Grrrr, alright, but don't think this is ever going to happen again."

"Alright, Sakura-chan," he opens his mouth. Sakura hesitates, and then hurriedly feeds him.

As soon as Naruto swallows, it sounds like a paper bomb went off, and Kakashi is suddenly glaring at all of them, a very short distance away from them, seething with anger more intense than the glare on a pile of snow. All of them are horrified.

"You disobeyed a direct order. All you had to do was keep Naruto from eating, not that hard considering he's **tied to a post!** You know what I'm going to do now." He pauses for dramatic effect, savoring the intense look of terror on their faces.

"You pass."

"Wh-what?" Sakura asks, dumbfounded.

"You…pass." Kakashi smiles at them.

"But…wait…what, I thought you told us not to feed Naruto."

"Exactly, I told you not to feed him, just like any captor would have if you were to be taken prisoner. That's how they get you, they make one of you weak and then the team falls apart, not because you rely on him too much, but because you have to protect him when he could protect himself. Instead of following an enemy's order and getting you killed, you disobey them so that you can live and break free. The success of a mission requires you to have team work, and for you to care for your teammates. If you had followed my order, you would all be in the academy at this very moment, and you'd all review for the next few years, but you pass, so congratulations, I'll see you all here, tomorrow, let's say: 7 o'clock."

Kakashi disappears and they're left alone again. After the initial shock of not being thrown back to the academy, Naruto and Sakura breathe sighs of relief and Sasuke only looks relieved and stands up to walk home to train alone. Sakura starts to walk off, but before she gets farther than a few steps Naruto calls out to her.

"Wait, Sakura-chan, I need help."

She turns back towards him and immediately realizes that he's still tied to the pole and quickly takes out a kunai and cuts the ropes off.

"Thank you, Sakura-chan."

"No problem, Naruto."

"I was really scared when Kakashi caught us, I don't know if I'd ever be able to become a Shinobi if we were sent back, but now I'm so excited that I'm just this much closer to becoming the Hokage, and I have you to thank."

"Why me?"

"If you hadn't fed me, we would have failed, but you kept your emotions for me from keeping you from doing it, you could have said no and you didn't, so thank you, and I'm sorry for making you do it."

Sakura smiled, "Thanks and I'm glad I did it."

'Thanks for making me feel less useless,' Sakura added mentally.

"May I walk you home, or would you rather me not."

"Sure Naruto, that sounds nice, thank you."

"Maybe he's not so annoying.'

**"But if he tries anything he's going to regret it."**

They started walking home in silence, neither being able to come up with a suitable topic to talk about. They could just see the town part of the village when Naruto remembered what he wanted to do yesterday.

"Oh, Sakura, could we go to the Konoha Library before I take you home."

"WHAT? **YOU **want to go to the **LIBRARY**?"

"Yeah, heh heh, I know, I wouldn't have believed it either, so do you mind?"

"Sure, what for?"

"Yesterday, when Kakashi told me how to throw a shuriken better, I realized that I need to know some techniques in order to become a better shinobi, and so I need to go to the library and learn things. *sigh* The only problem is that I hate sitting around and reading."

'He wants to be better so much that he makes himself do what he doesn't like.'

She made a decision then.

"Then how about you check out the books and while we're training I can read out interesting techniques for you to try."

"Really? Like when Kakashi told me what to do and I only had to act out the steps? That would be great Sakura-chan."

"And in exchange, you can teach me how to be a better shinobi, physically."

"Okay, just leave it to me."

They started towards the library, as an unnoticed yellow blur runs ahead. They talked the entire way, mostly Naruto, talking about ramen, how excited he was to be a shinobi, finally, and about wanting to go to Ichiraku's for ramen. They reached the library, where Naruto hesitated a bit when they entered. He looked nervously at the admissions clerk sitting at the desk ahead of them, whose job it was to keep civilians and certain unwelcome shinobi out of the library. She looked up and saw Naruto and was about to yell at him, until she saw Sakura, and the hitai-ate on both of them, Sakura's worn like a ribbon (much like the ribbon that Ino once gave her), and Naruto's on his forehead. She forced herself to smile at them, wondering how that **demon** could ever become a shinobi, but since he was one, and with another, she had no choice, but to let him in.

"Excuse me, where could we find books on various ninjutsu and taijutsu skills?" Sakura asked the clerk.

"You'll find the Shinobi Abilities section on the second floor," She said with forced pleasantry.

"Thank you, ma'am."

They climbed the stairs and started in the "A" shelf. There were many books, some big, some small, and some that were more like pamphlets.

Naruto looks around and groans, "Why can't there be just one big book that tells you everything?"

"Because that would be VERY big, but I do agree, there are so many choices it's hard to tell which one will be most informative. That's why you pick large books, because they'll have a lot of detail, and if they have diagrams it'll be better to perform the technique."

She looks through some of them: After Effects of Genjutsu on the Mind, A Shinobi's Lifeline: Chakra, and All About Kekkei Genkai to name a few. Then she finds a promising one: A-Z Ninjutsu: Everything On Anything Ninjutsu.

"This looks good, big, many pictures, and a good way to find useful ninjutsu."

She looks at Naruto and finds that he's gone. She moves forward, to a reading area, looks around and sees Naruto putting a little boy, who is dressed in a yellow shirt and wearing some goggles, in a headlock.

"You aren't supposed to be in here Konohamaru, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to ambush you, and I failed."

"Hey Naruto, who are you talking to," Sakura asked.

"This is Konohamaru, an academy student who thinks I'm his rival."

"That's right I am, I have to beat you or else I'll never be able to be Hokage"

"Then I guess you'll never be Hokage."

"Yes I will, just you wait, I'll be the greatest Hokage ever, and someday I'm gonna wipe the floor with you."

They start fighting again and Sakura quickly tries to break it up.

"Hey, guys, we're in the library, we need to be quiet here."

"Hey boss, who's the girl with the giant forehead?" Konohamaru asks Naruto.

Naruto was about to reply when he noticed Sakura.

"KONOHAMARU RUN!"

"What, why?"

Then he saw Sakura, she had her head turned towards him, her eyes were large and white with blind fury, something that Naruto causes a lot. He was immediately afraid for his life and tried to run, but he was too late. Sakura was about to hit Konohamaru with the force of a paper bomb, but Naruto pushed him out of the way and took the hit on his head and flew away, bouncing across the floor, blood flying from his nose animatedly, but Sakura didn't care, she continued at Konohamaru, seething with anger. He now had time to get away, but she was gaining fast.

"I'm sorry, please don't kill me," Konohamaru begged.

She chased him around for a bit until Konohamaru tripped. Sakura was about to punch him when Naruto grabbed her from under her arms.

"Let me go, Naruto, I'm going to kill that little runt."

"Sakura-chan calm down, he didn't mean it," Naruto begged in a whiney voice.

"HEY, let go of her, you monster!" came a voice from the stairs.

The clerk had been frightened when she first heard the noise, thinking Naruto was going on some rampage. Then she got up her courage enough to go up, which is when she saw Naruto holding Sakura and jumped to the obvious-but-not-correct conclusion. Naruto quickly let go of Sakura, who was confused.

'Who's she calling a monster?'

The clerk points to Naruto, "You can't go around hurting innocent girls, demon, you need to leave, NOW!"

Naruto starts to walk off with a sullen look on his face, but Sakura's anger is now turned towards the clerk, and instead of blind rage, it's more like a dark, powerful anger, much more frightening than her usual anger.

"He wasn't hurting me, he was keeping me from beating Konohamaru, and who are you calling demon, BITCH! Naruto is not a demon, and he's done nothing to you, so he doesn't deserve to be talked to like that!"

The clerk was surprised that she would defend the boy, but quickly attempted to retaliate.

"I don't care, he still broke the rules of the library, so he has to leave, and can't come back for thirty days."

"Well, what about me, I broke the rules too, but you only seem interested in attacking Naruto, and Konohamaru isn't even supposed to be in here: he's not a ninja yet."

She just now realized Konohamaru was here and she immediately goes to him.

"Oh, honorable grandson, are you alright, did that boy harm you?" Talking to him in a much softer and sweeter voice.

Konohamaru was very annoyed as well. "Of course he didn't, you old hag, there's no way he would ever hurt me, besides, I'm the great Konohamaru, he couldn't have even if he wanted to."

The clerk was stunned that she would grant such a reaction from **two **children, especially the third's grandson, and held her tongue this time, since she doesn't want to anger him anymore.

"Come on, Naruto, let's leave." Sakura said and the three of them left, forgetting all about the book they were about to get. They got outside and Konohamaru said his apologies and went home.

"Are you alright, Naruto? That was a horrible woman back there, don't let her get you down, you are not a monster."

"Thanks Sakura-chan, I'm used to it."

"Used to it? You mean you get that a lot?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't have been let in there if you hadn't have been with me, but it's like that around some of the other places in the village."

"That's horrible, oh, and we forgot to get that book."

"Awww, yeah, damn it, and we can't go back there now."

"Oh, well if we go to my house I can get a book that has the most basic ninjutsu."

"Really, err, um, are you sure I go to your house, will your parents be okay with it?"

She remembered what her mom had said yesterday and had a moment of doubt, but then remembered her dad's words and dismissed it.

"Of course they will, Dad doesn't get home 'til three, but my mom is always home and they say I'm just like her."

Naruto wasn't so reassured, but accepted it. They walked in solemn silence.

'First mom, now that librarian lady, at least my mom didn't refer to him as a monster, just concerned. Why? For my safety? What's so dangerous about Naruto? So far he's only been kind to me, even I have to see that now, and I don't see his pranks as being so 'monstrous', just annoying. I don't understand why people don't like him so much.'

Her thoughts were cut short when they reached her house. Naruto seemed nervous before going inside, but it was only a moment's hesitation.

"Mom, I'm home, and I brought one of my teammates with me," Sakura called to her mother.

"Oh really, is it that Sasuke boy you keep—" she was cut short when she saw who it was. She wanted to throw things and tell him to go away, but restrained herself because Sakura was there.

"No Mom, it's Naruto. We passed the exam that our sensei gave us."

"Oh, so that's what you were doing, and why you were out so long." She forced herself to act normally.

"Not exactly, we were there until noon, but Naruto wanted to go to the library, so we stopped there, but this mean lady had yelled at Naruto and so we left before we could check out a book." Sakura explained.

"Oh really, what was it about?"

"This academy student, Konohamaru, sneaked in to 'challenge' Naruto. He wasn't any trouble really, but Konohamaru had made a remark about my…" Sakura avoided the last word, but her mother knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Oh really," she replied laughing a little, "did you beat up this boy."

"No, Naruto blocked my punch… with his face, and then he tried to stop me by grabbing me, that's when the librarian came up and, for some reason, thought he was attacking me. She was horrible, calling him demon and monster, and totally ignoring anything other than him, like Konohamaru, who isn't supposed to be in the Konoha Library."

"That's awful," she said, completely forgetting her earlier feelings, knowing that no one likes being called horrible things, and agreeing that Naruto wasn't in the wrong.

"So we left and I came home so I could grab a book, Naruto wants to learn to be a better shinobi, that's why we were at the library, but now we can only look at the basics, you remember that book you got me when I started this year, I'm gonna grab that, then we'll go out and train."

"That's wonderful, alright I won't keep you any longer."

"Okay, I'll be right back, Naruto."

She left Naruto and her mom in the entrance hall. It was awkward for a moment, then she spoke.

"So, you're Naruto, I'm Kerria Haruno, nice to meet you." She forced herself to be friendly.

"Hi Mrs. Haruno," he said nervously.

"My husband, Hanami, should be home in a few hours, and that's when I usually start making dinner, so could you please return her here at 7:00."

Naruto donned his trademark grin and gives her a thumbs up.

"You can count on me, I'll get her home on time."

She was pleased with his answer. Sakura came down then.

"Okay Naruto, we can go out now."

"Alright you two, don't train too hard and remember I want you home before 7:00."

"Okay Mom, we'll make it.

So they set off for the same training grounds.

"So, there's not very many things in here that are useful, and the few things that are useful, are most likely ones we know and can perform, so I guess this is just review and taijutsu."

"That's okay, I probably don't know half the stuff in there, so just read anything useful and I'll do it."

They reached the grounds and Sakura sits down under a tree.

"Okay, first one is the Bunshin no Jutsu, I know you need help with that one."

"Actually, I have something that's even better," Naruto crosses his hands to form a "T", using two half-tiger hand sign and four puffs of smoke appear and reveal four more Narutos.

"Wow, I thought you did something to pass, you can create four clones."

"Yeah, and they're even better than normal clones, look," one of the clones punch another, and it makes contact with it. It disappears and three clones are left.

"They're solid, too, that's amazing, heh, so I guess you don't need this one."

'That's how he passed, where'd he learn that one?'

"Okay, so the next one is the substitution jutsu. Kakashi used this one on Sasuke-kun. The hand seals are tiger, boar, ox, dog, and serpent."

Naruto makes the hand seals. For a few seconds it seems like nothing happens, then Naruto disappears in a puff of smoke and is replaced with a log.

"Wow, you did it on your first try 'didn't expect that', but where are you?" She gets up and looks around.

"BEHIND YOU!" he yells from behind her, grabbing her at the waist and pulling her against her.

"ACK, N-naruto! Don't do that!" She yells, escaping from his grasp.

"Heh heh, sorry, but I had to use the jutsu to the full extent," he says with an idiot grin.

"Yeah, well, try it some other way," she sits back down, blushing, and picks the book back up.

Naruto does this over and over again until he can do it without looking like he did anything before he disappears. Eventually Sakura starts throwing shuriken at him and they do that for a while until he's mastered the move. She grabs up the book and looks through it.

"The next one is one I believe you need work on: The Henge no Jutsu, or have you mastered a different, better version?" She says trying to put on an annoyed tone.

"Haha, no, that still needs work," he says light-heartedly.

He tries it by becoming Hiruzen; however, like all the times before, he's too short with a pair of too large lips and a too big nose.

"No, Naruto, you're supposed to picture who you want to become in your head, the Third Hokage is taller, and doesn't have a large nose or lips."

She pulls out the picture of Hiruzen she uses as a book mark. Naruto looks at the picture for a long time, looking away at times trying to picture him in his mind, until he's satisfied.

"Imagine your chakra surrounding you as you make the seals, and imagine that chakra being shaped into the image of the person you wish to turn into." A mysterious voice comes across their ears.

They jump as they hear the voice, not expecting anyone to have been with them. However, Naruto is more interested in perfecting his skills, so he blindly follows the voice's advice. He makes the hand seals with his eyes closed, imagining the blue wave of energy that is chakra surrounding him and taking the shape of the image he ingrained into his mind for the last half-hour. He disappears into smoke, and when it clears you can see… drum roll, suspenseful music… (will I just let it build for a few moments or get on with it, mmmmhmmmmmm) a Hiruzen in his Hokage outfit, with correct facial features, even down to the smallest detail, but he's still shorter than normal.

"That's almost perfect Naruto, you just need to be a little bit taller, imagine your face being a foot higher than normal," comes the voice.

"Is that you Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto speaks loudly back at the voice.

Sure enough Kakashi walks out into their sight, but he's with Iruka and Sasuke as well.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto yells excitedly at him.

"That was great Naruto, well done, that's the best I've ever seen it, all you need is practice and you can do the same thing even faster," Iruka says to him proudly.

"But I still got it wrong," Naruto replies sadly.

"Because you were looking at a photo, not the real thing, you aren't able to judge things like height or weight from a picture, when going on espionage missions you are given a sketch of the person with measurements, your only job is to imagine the actual life size based off those measurements."

"Now try it again and imagine the Hokage's face, only with it a foot above yours," Kakashi says.

Naruto tries this again over and over for another half-hour until he's able to transform into each of the people there, the first attempts at any of them looking comically ridiculous (especially Sasuke, but that was intentional), but he eventually accomplished it and he was really excited when he did.

Afterwards, Kakashi had them spar together. First Naruto and Sakura, then Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura gets out a couple of times before she even lands a hit on Naruto and so that one is a pretty one-sided fight.

Sasuke, however, beats Naruto for a while. After taking a break they go at it again. Naruto runs at Sasuke, makes a "T" with his hands "**KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU**" and four Narutos appear on either side of him. Sasuke ignores them, thinking that they're just clones and decides to attack the middle Naruto. He punches him and he makes contact, but this Naruto disappears in a puff of smoke. Alarmed, Sasuke doesn't pay attention to the other four Narutos as they pin him to the ground.

"That was great Naruto, surprising your enemy with a new, unseen jutsu," Kakashi says.

Naruto dispelled the clones and got up. Sasuke gets up as well, but isn't ready to quit.

"Yeah, well let's see if you do any good when I know about it."

They go after it again. Naruto makes his clones as he charges Sasuke. Sasuke doesn't move until they're unable to withdraw and throws a bunch of shuriken at them. All of them are hit, four are dispelled and the real Naruto gets it in the chest and trips forward. As he's flying, though, he is engulfed in smoke and in place of him is a log hits the ground. Suddenly, three Narutos come out of the trees around Sasuke. One lands and tries to trip Sasuke with a sweeping kick to his feet. Sasuke jumps to avoid it and kicks it in the face to propel himself into the air, it disappears, and two Narutos land and jump after him. One grabs him and pulls him down as the other throws a punch at his face, but Sasuke blocks it. Then the same clone tries to knee him in the stomach, but Sasuke moves out of the way. Sasuke frees one of his feet from the clone who pulled him down, and kicks it in the face. It disappears and Sasuke knees the other one in the stomach and it disappears. Sasuke looks all around and couldn't find the real Naruto. Behind him Naruto walks out from behind a cloak that looks like a tree trunk and sneaks up on Sasuke, and puts a kunai to his throat.

"And Naruto wins again, great job distracting Sasuke like that," Kakashi praises Naruto.

Sasuke and Naruto go at it some more, both getting the upper hand over the other every-so-often until Kakashi stops them.

"Okay, well it's getting pretty late so let's stop for the day," Kakashi says as it nears 7.

"Alright, in celebration for all your successes I'm taking you all to Ramen Ichiraku!" Iruka announces. Naruto immediately jumps for joy and starts pulling Iruka very quickly and forcefully.

Kakashi turns to Sakura, "I've already cleared it with your parents, so it's okay."

Sakura, who had been thinking about what her mom said, had been about to protest, but now she smiles excitedly, she always loves to go out and eat, since she eats at home most of the time.

They got to Ramen Ichiraku and had a very warm welcome from Teuchi and Ayame. Naruto ate three bowls before the rest of them could finish one, though Kakashi ate his first bowl in the blink of an eye, and he showed no signs of stopping.

"Naruto, don't eat so fast, you'll choke," Sakura said, a bit annoyed that he was being kind of rude by wolfing it down as he did.

"Don't worry Sakura, I could eat five bowls in seconds and it all goes down smoothly."

"But it took him a few tries before he could do it, though I was amazed when he did it," said Ayame to Sakura.

"Yeah, luckily I wasn't on this side of the counter when he tried it, I gave him the Heimlich and you can imagine what happened," Teuchi added.

"Ugh, I don't want to imagine that," she said making Teuchi, Ayame and Iruka laugh.

"So Naruto, why the sudden interest in training, I see you asked Sakura to give you instructions in ninjutsu, you've never wanted to learn this stuff before?" Iruka asked

"When Kakashi told me the technique for the shurikenjutsu I realized that the reason why I'm a bad shinobi is because I didn't try to learn anything, I just thought it would come to me."

"Yeah he told me about that, and that technique was one of the first things we taught at the academy, but that doesn't matter, you know it now and you realize your mistakes, I'm proud of you for trying to right them," he says to Naruto his voice showing the intense pride he has for Naruto. Naruto smiles and eagerly goes back to eating, that simple statement strengthening his resolve to be a better shinobi.

"And what about you, Sakura, I thought you hated Naruto, why'd you agree to help him?" Kakashi asked.

"Well, Naruto isn't so annoying, though he can be, a lot, but if he is willing to do what he doesn't like for his goal, I'm willing to do the same for my goal," she answered looking at Sasuke through the corner of her eyes.

'If I get better, he might notice me then.'

Kakashi is unsurprised.

'So she's doing it to get to Sasuke, so helping Naruto is just a means to an end, none of them have really changed, they still want to achieve their own selfish goals, eh, at least these two changed their tactics, I really hope Sasuke learns to acknowledge them.'

_Kakashi had been wondering what Naruto and Sakura were doing when she had freed him. He heard Naruto say he wanted to go to the library, something even Kakashi didn't think would happen, but the weirdest part was when Sakura had agreed to help him._

'_What sort of plan does she have up her sleeve.'_

_He saw them go into the library, he been entering when he heard the commotion, so the clerk didn't see him as she went to go find out what was going on. He had almost gone up to defend Naruto, when Sakura beat him to it._

'_Maybe she really wants to help him.'_

_He got out before they did, heard their plans for the evening, and decided to have Sasuke join in on the training. On the way there he had seen Iruka Umino walking around the food market. Iruka turned and saw Kakashi, and practically yelled at him:_

"_Kakashi, so you had your exam for your team today? Did Naruto do okay? Did he pass? Did the other two help him, or did they just leave him to fail?" he asked these questions and many more, speaking too fast for Kakashi to answer. Kakashi eventually put his hand up to stop the assault of questions._

"_They passed, they had the most horrible team work ever, but they showed that they were capable of working together, and Naruto did surprisingly well, he gave himself a chance to grab a bell, but he let his annoyance of missing me to keep him from seeing the opportunity."_

"_That's wonderful, not that he failed to see it, but that he had given himself a chance by himself, I have to go and congratulate him, where is he?"_

"_He and Sakura will be at training grounds nine later, but I was going to grab Sasuke and have him join in, maybe we can take them all out when we get them together," Kakashi suggested._

"_Alright then, let's do that."_

_They walked over to the Uchiha Estate, where they could hear the crackling of fire not too far away. When they got to Sasuke's house, he was on the pier in the lake, practicing his fireball jutsu over the water. As Sasuke let loose another one, Kakashi snuck up on him, crouched down and when the jutsu ended Kakashi yelled "__**ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH**__" in his ear. Sasuke almost jumped out into the water covering his ass. Kakashi stood chuckling, and Sasuke turned around with a sort of angry expression._

"_You must be bored training alone, why don't you come with us, you can't improve by only hitting trees and spitting fire."_

_Sasuke could hardly argue, after all, he hadn't gotten any better for the last year doing what he does, so a Jounin and a Chuunin could be a great help._

"_Why don't we just stay here, it's just as good a spot as any," Sasuke said, taking a fighting stance._

"_Oh, you aren't training with us, your teammates are going to be somewhere and you are, too." Kakashi said._

"_No thanks, those two aren't going to be any use," Sasuke turned back to continue his training._

"_Okay, but as punishment I'm going to have to do this:" he crouches and makes a tiger hand seal "__**ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH**__"_

_Sasuke just barely dodges the attack._

"_OKAY, okay, fine, I'll go."_

"So then, you're going to need a different source for your jutsu learning, that old thing only has low ranking jutsu," Kakashi says, referring to the book Sakura's holding, as he pulls out a book. A-Z Ninjutsu: Everything On Anything Ninjutsu.

"This is the book I was going to check out of the library," Sakura says picking it up.

"Except this one is bought, so you can take it anywhere and keep it.

"Thank you Kakashi-sensei."

"No problem."

They finished eating, payed for the food, said their goodbyes, and went home. Naruto leaves feeling like a champion. He's mastered two new jutsu, he got to spend time with Sakura, and he's beaten Sasuke more than once, and he's now one more step towards his goal.

'I hope this feeling lasts forever. I really liked spending time with Sakura.' He thought about the trick he pulled on her and couldn't help but feel proud of himself.

'Sakura felt nice in my arms… Man, I wish I was her goal, not Sasuke-teme. Oh well, all I can do is make the moments I have with her last, even if she doesn't end up with me, I'll be glad I got to spend time with her.'

He walks home, gets inside, the clock reads 8:50, and he gets ready for bed. He changes into his pajamas and curls up under the covers and goes to sleep.

Sasuke spent the entire time at Ichiraku's thinking about Naruto and his shadow clones. He takes the usual deserted path, but he's somewhat annoyed.

'How did I let Naruto get me? He's supposed to be the dead last, but one jutsu and he's able to beat me, over and over.'

He gets home and gets ready for bed, and as he goes to sleep he thinks:

'I can't let that happen anymore, but the only way to do that is to train with them. Ugh, fine, but only because Naruto seems to be capable of beating me. I'll show them what a true shinobi can is.'

Sakura walks into the house, the clock reads 8:40.

"Sakura, is that you?" Her mom calls from the living.

Sakura walks in and her parents are sitting around working on some crossword in the paper together.

"Yeah, mom, it's me."

"Did you have a fun time with your team today?"

"Yes, I had lots of fun, Naruto learned two new jutsu and then we spared together, I didn't do so well, but I got in a few good hits."

"That's awesome, and where'd you go to eat?"

"We went to Ramen Ichiraku, the people there are great, and their ramen is as incredible as Naruto says it is."

"I hear that's a good restaurant, we should go there together some time. Anyway, you must be tired so you can go get ready for bed."

"Thanks, I am pretty tired."

She leaves the two of them alone as she runs up to her room.

"See Kerria, I told you the boy wouldn't be any trouble," Hanami says.

"Yeah, I met him today, he seems responsible enough."

"And what I heard about the clerk yelling at him in the library makes me want to go yell at the clerk."

"Yes, it's horrible that an adult could act so immaturely."

"Oh ho, so says the one who wanted to make the Hokage change the teams yesterday," Hanami says chuckling.

"Heh, yeah, I was wrong, and it seems he'll be a good influence on Sakura, it's been a while since she was willing to train."

Sakura goes up to her room and puts on her pajamas.

'Today was great, though I didn't really accomplish anything, I still had fun training.'

She goes over the day, passing the survival test, the library incident, training with Naruto.

'I bet he wasn't even using half his strength when we were sparring and I couldn't hit him very much, he never even needed clones, I'll never get Sasuke if I can't handle one Naruto, let alone five. I should try those techniques with Naruto, the substitution jutsu was really good.'

She remembers Naruto's attempt at the jutsu, all the times he successfully completed it, even with shuriken flying at him. Then she thinks of what he did the first time he had done the jutsu. When he grabbed her there was a moment when she felt… good… like it was… right.

'Whoa, whoa, no, I like Sasuke-kun, not Naruto, I'm just using him to get to Sasuke-kun.'

"**Quit kidding yourself, Naruto felt nice and you know it, just think: when all that exercise makes him toned—"**

'No, No, stop talking, Sasuke-kun will feel better, and he's already toned.'

"**Pfft, whatever, I'm out." **

Sakura climbs into bed and falls asleep imagining Sasuke holding her like Naruto did.

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><p>AN: Okay, the ending felt kind of rushed. I couldn't think of very much to put down, besides the obvious things these guys would thing. It was especially hard to write the last section: a guy just can't casually describe another guy like that, especially when it's supposed to have some sort of appreciative tone.<p>

The content in my stories are mostly accurate; I research characters and jutsu. If I get anything wrong, blame my "dumb" phone (My only source for the Internet at home), and p.m. me or review about it so I can fix it.

Sakura's parents' names are Kerria—rose in Japanese—for her mom because she's beautiful, a red head, and has a bit of an attitude (thorns), and Hanami—The time in Japan where people watch Sakura trees bloom—because giving him a name that means a flower in English… not manly… at all, and he watches out for Sakura—like a father should—he has white hair (white + red = pink… I think). If there is a manly name for him that means something with a white blossom, tell me and I may have his name be different in a different story, if I actually decide to try another one.

If you think it necessary, tell me if you wish Naruto to change outfits, the next chapter might be filler, if so, please tell me… it will give me something to write about. Anyway R&R.


	3. Training Day

AN: Sorry for the delay, I haven't had very many brainstorms for the chapter, plus it's completely made up, so it took a while for me to come up with this… and I've been too lazy to do it, heh heh XP. Oh well, I still got it in and I'll do my best to update sooner, especially now I can go to the library more often, giving me a small window of time that'll make writing more enjoyable.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anime or manga, those belong to Musashi Kishimoto and the animation studio's staff and cast.

"**Kyuubi/Inner Sakura"**

_Flashbacks_

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Written Words

Actual Length=2,578

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><p>Naruto awoke one Saturday morning to an alarm clock blaring. He groggily gets up to turn it off. It says 7 o'clock, the time he usually gets up to go to the training grounds is 6 since Kakashi doesn't usually turn up until 8 or later and Naruto wants to do his morning exercises. However, today is one of their off days so Naruto didn't have to go so he gets to get up later. For the past two months Kakashi has been working Team 7 like dogs. They constantly trained every weekday or they were assigned various D-rank jobs. Most of these jobs were things like pulling weeds or plowing fields and, coupled with their already intense physical exercises, running, swimming, sparring and other strength or endurance building exercises, they had been dead tired.<p>

Every weekend was spent resting. Even Naruto could barely walk the first week. However, after about three weeks, the weekends were spent sleeping less and less. Since last week, Naruto was able to spend his mornings doing his own exercises.

He started doing his regular morning exercises: 40-50 pushups, 100 sit ups, 100 standing calf raises, 5 minute wall sits and 40-50 pull ups. He had been doing a less intense version since the second year he failed the graduation exam and he pumped it up after he passed Kakashi's survival test. It was around 8:30 and Naruto was eating his third cup of instant ramen when someone knocked on his front door. He went to open the door and was surprised to see Sakura standing there holding a bit of rope and a book.

"S-sakura-chan, why're you here?"

"To get you, so we can start training. Why, what's wrong?"

"Oh yeah, it's been so long since we trained together, I kinda forgot."

"Well, now you know, so let's go," she grabbed his wrist and practically dragged him out.

'Wow, Sakura-chan's really excited,' then he remembers something.

"Wait, Sakura-chan, my ramen!" He exclaims trying to return to his ramen, but Sakura had a firm grip on him and his attempts at escape were useless. Sakura didn't notice it though; all she could think about was how she didn't feel too tired to stand for the first time in the entire month that they had been training under Kakashi's rigid exercises.

'For once I'm not dead tired on the weekend, it's only been a month and I'm already tougher than I was before, I just need to keep it up and Sasuke shall be mine.'

Eventually Naruto ceased his feeble attempts and had animated tears flowing down his face as Sakura dragged him to training grounds.

"Okay Naruto, let's get started," she takes out the book Kakashi gave her: A-Z Ninjutsu: Everything on Anything Ninjutsu, it was marked in three different places and she opened it up to the first one.

"I already picked out a few that would be easy for us, the first one for today is Kanashibari no Jutsu or the Temporary Body Paralysis Technique."

Sakura made the hand seals for the jutsu and Naruto's body went numb, only his head could move around.

"Wha—I can't move," Naruto tried to move his arms but they wouldn't respond.

"See, this is a very useful technique if you find someone who's too fast for you to hit you can use this to trap them. Just know that if they attempt to move it'll make the jutsu harder to maintain. Now you try it." She released the jutsu and Naruto could feel his limbs again.

Naruto made the hand seals, however Sakura only went numb in her legs.

"That's a start, you've got my legs, but I can still move," she raised her arms and twists her torso to illustrated.

"Damn, why didn't it work?"

"The book says that it requires quite a bit of chakra so maybe you didn't put in enough."

So Naruto tried it again and this time he put in a bit more chakra than before.

"This time you just don't have my arms, just a bit more chakra and you'll have it."

Naruto increased his chakra output and Sakura could feel her arms lose the feeling.

"Good job Naruto, now that you have trapping down, let's work on your escaping: Nawanuke no Jutsu – Escape Technique."

She took out a bit of rope and handed it to Naruto.

"Tie me to the post and I'll show you how to do it that way."

Naruto does as he's told and ties Sakura to the one he was tied to before.

It takes a few minutes of Sakura struggling and Naruto looking intensely from all angles, but Sakura eventually unties herself. Then Sakura ties Naruto to the post. It takes him a long while to do it, but he successfully wriggled himself out. He does this over and over until he can do it in less than five minutes. Next, Sakura shows him how to do it when the torso and feet are bound, with the hands bound behind the person. This one is a bit more difficult and so he can only do it in a bit over six minutes. The next form is just like the last except the hands are bound in front. He practices that one until it also only takes about five minutes.

"Okay, now that you are adequate in nawanuke jutsu, I have a really good one I want to show you: the Generic Sealing Technique. This is good for storing many things at once and making the load you are carrying less of a burden."

Sakura took out a scroll, opened it and it had a bunch of writing on it. She touched it with a tiger seal and a kunai came out of it.

"Wow Sakura-chan, that's amazing."

"I know isn't it? You don't need a scroll to do it either, you just draw these symbols anywhere and you can store items inside, then all you need to do to unseal them you put forth a very small amount of chakra."

Naruto went about sealing and unsealing objects for a few minutes, it's not even hard enough for him to have trouble with so it's not like he really needs to work at it.

"Okay, that's all the ninjutsu for today, why don't we work on my taijutsu?"

Naruto nodded and set his battle stance. Sakura came at him and the two sparred. In the month they trained under Kakashi Sakura had made quite an improvement in her skills. She could now keep up with Naruto, without his shadow clones, and she could last quite a while before becoming too tired. They sparred and did strength building exercises, like what Naruto does every morning, and she adapted to them quickly because of her weak body. However, she still didn't even have Sasuke's stamina much less Naruto's and they had to stop after two hours of sparring. The next two hours Sakura had to deal with Naruto and one of his clones, which Sakura didn't do so well at, already being tired and not skilled enough to take two of him. At four o' clock Sakura finally gave in. She could barely stand so Naruto offered to carry her home on his back and so he slowly made his way to her house, both to lengthen the time they were like that, and to keep the trip from being too bumpy.

"Thanks Naruto, I can barely feel my legs right now."

"It's alright, I enjoy helping you like this."

"I just wish I could walk on my own two legs for once, you've had to take me home almost every day since Kakashi passed us. I wish I'd hurry up and strong like you and Sasuke."

"Don't worry Sakura-chan, just keep up what you did today and you'll surpass us in no time. If the dead last is able to improve enough to kick the shit out of the 'Rookie of the Year'."

"Well it's not like you can do it without your clones, but I still appreciate you helping me with my training. I don't have much of an idea of how I can make it up to you."

"Hmmm, maybe you could do it by going on a date with me."

Sakura hit the top of his head.

"Don't ruin the moment, Naruto."

"Ow, um, ok, sorry," he said quickly.

They made it to her house and he puts her down.

"Thanks again, Naruto."

"You're welcome, Sakura-chan, see you later."

Sakura enters her house and Naruto walks off.

"Sakura, is that you? Come into the living room."

She went in and her father and mother were just sitting around.

"Sit down, you must be tired." Her father said lightheartedly.

Sakura sat down and her entire body felt as if a great load had been taken off.

"So how was training, Naruto didn't go too hard on you I hope."

"Oh he was just hard enough, I can still move, I'll be good to go tomorrow."

"That's good, did Naruto master those techniques?"

"Yeah, they were pretty simple, he got them down in a few hours and then we sparred for four."

"Good for him and have you made much improvement with your taijutsu?"

"Yeah, I only needed to take a break once, and I can hold my own against him, and I'm okay with both him and a clone."

"I'm proud of you. Alright, I won't keep you, just put away the dishes and you can do whatever."

Sakura nodded thankfully, emptied the dishwasher and went up to take a shower. She donned a bath robe and went to her room. After she changed into some clean clothes she took out the book and started studying it. There were a lot of jutsu listed in there, some that were for academy students, some for genin, chuunin, and jounin, and some that were listed as S-class. Some didn't even have info on them. She and Naruto now have the most useful basics down and she didn't find any that she thought would be easy to learn. She eventually flipped to a section titled Kage Bunshin Jutsu that immediately caught her attention; she looked to see the move is a jounin classed skill.

'How is it that Naruto can use this move, but he couldn't use the Bunshin skill?'

She read what the description was:

The Kage Bunshin—Art of the Shadow Doppelganger or Shadow Clone—technique is a jounin class skill. It's similar to the Bunshin technique however they aren't illusions, but actual copies of the user. The user's chakra is evenly divided between the copies making this move a possible threat to the user since the user's chakra can be drained many times faster. However, this technique is very useful in many areas. When a clone is dispelled, either through becoming damaged or by the user's will, anything that clone learned is transferred to the user. This makes for learning ninjutsu much faster, for example: if the user makes one clone and practices controlling their chakra for an hour, when he dispels the clone it's as if the user gained two hours of practice. This is also useful for spying: the user's clone can infiltrate an enemy stronghold, then the clone can gain info on the enemy and not worry about getting back out.

'Wow, that's an amazing jutsu, that'll make learning the rest of these a breeze, but what was that bit about controlling your chakra?'

She looked it up in the book, it's a small section:

Chakra Control

Chakra control is the basis of any ninja's ability. In order to efficiently handle ones jutsu they must learn to make and put in only the necessary amount of chakra. If someone produces too much chakra and only uses a little bit of that chakra then the rest of it is wasted. Likewise, if you make too little then the jutsu isn't going to work. If a ninja can learn to control this then they can extend their battles as far as need be, without wasting any energy or having a jutsu less powerful or useless. 

'That's probably Naruto's problem, that's why the paralysis technique took him a few tries.'

Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother calling her for dinner. She went down and had eaten dinner with the thought of the next time they'd train. When she was done eating she went back up to her room and she seemed to just start feeling the weight of the day. Her head hit the pillow and she fell asleep after a few more moments of thinking about it before she falls asleep.

* * *

><p>Naruto left Sakura's house and started heading back to the training grounds. Unlike Sakura, he feels like he could go a few more hours, so he decides to go and work on his combinations. He got back to the training grounds and made a bunch of clones. For about an hour he practices a few ways that he could work together with his clones to overwhelm the opponent, though without a proper enemy he isn't sure if it would actually work. When he mastered all that he could think of he was at a loss at what to do. He didn't feel too tired to keep training, but he couldn't think of a reason to train at the moment. He was turned to leave for home, wondering what he would do the rest of the day, but standing right behind him was the last person he expected to see on a day off: Kakashi.<p>

"Waa! Kakashi-sensei don't pop up behind me like that, you freaked me out. What are you doing here?"

"I was walking by and saw you were practicing some techniques and the thing that stood out the most was how your skills in taijutsu were somewhat lacking."

"My taijutsu skills are the best around Sensei!"

"Oh really? If you think you're so good, attack me then."

Naruto conjured up some shadow clones and attacked Kakashi using the technique that he had been practicing. Needless to say, Naruto wasn't able to touch Kakashi. Kakashi had taken out each of his clones as they tried to attack him. Naruto is currently in a headlock struggling to escape, but unable to break free of Kakashi's grasp.

"You were saying, Naruto?

"Alright! Alright! I give!"

"Now that you realize that you need work, let's get started, shall we?"

He released Naruto, who took a few steps away from Kakashi, and the two of them started sparring. Kakashi had to hold back so much on speed and power just to allow Naruto to have a chance and even then Naruto had little chance of actually hitting him. They practiced until 9 with Naruto showing almost no improvement.

'Without clones,' Naruto thought, 'I'm about as good as Sakura.'

"Okay Naruto, it appears that you have a lot of work to do, so every Saturday we'll meet here and train."

"Oh, okay, but Sakura-chan seems to be able to practice with me now and I don't want to abandon her."

"Just bring her with you," he says. 'She needs the practice more than you do anyway.'

"Oh yeah! I didn't think of that. Okay Kakashi-sensei, I'll do that."

"Good, now go on home, get some rest, you'll need it for the coming week."

Naruto went home feeling extremely happy. He showered, ate, exercised some more and went to bed, falling asleep very quickly.

* * *

><p>AN: That was a really short chapter. This has been a test of my story telling abilities, which is why this is late. Part of the lateness can be blamed on my laziness, but I also can't help my ability to forget what is important so it took a few days to remember to actually post the new chapter.<p> 


	4. Land of Waves Beginning

AN: Huzzah, chapter 3 is here. I know, I know, I'm late, like, three months late, but I just can't help being lazy. Anyway, let's get on with this thing, it'll cover the first half of the Land of Waves arc; let's see if I can make a good fight.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anime or manga, those belong to Musashi Kishimoto and the animation studio's staff and cast.

"**Kyuubi/Inner Sakura"**

_Flashbacks_

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Written Words

* * *

><p>Somewhere, deep inside the forest, three genin are completing their first D-Rank mission of the day. A black haired boy, wearing a blue shirt with a fan on his back and some grey shorts a Konoha hitai-ate on his forehead.<p>

"Target in sight; is everyone in position? Sakura?"

"Yes," said a pink haired kunoichi, wearing a red shirt with a white circle on the back and some half-knee-length black shorts, a hitai-ate is tied around the back of her head, on top of her hair, like a ribbon. The shirt is kind of like a dress and at the waist it splits into two 'flaps' that cover the front and back of her legs and extend as far as her knees.

"Naruto?"

"Let's just get a move on it already," complained an impatient, blonde haired boy wearing a bright orange sweat pants, and a black muscle shirt covered by a bright orange jacket, with blue around the shoulders and waist, and a white, high collar, with a red swirl on the back of it, a hitai-ate on his forehead as well.

"Waiting for the order, Kakashi-sensei," the black haired boy said.

"Alright, 3…2…1…go!" Ordered the silver haired, rather tall, man wearing a flak jacket, black shirt and pants, his hitai-ate slanted over his left eye.

The three of them charged forward, towards something rustling in the bushes. A brown flash is seen coming out of the bush and the three genin rush after it. They chase it around the forest for a while, getting closer each passing minute. The blonde speeds up and jumps onto the animal.

"Gotcha," he says triumphantly, holding up the cat they had been chasing all morning. Then the cat turns on him and scratches his face off trying to escape, but, though he thrashes around as if he was being exorcised, he doesn't let go.

"Naruto, stop fooling around and let's get this cat back to the owner," Kakashi says.

Not long afterwards they were in the missions building of Konoha. The team was watching, with as much amusement as concern, at an old, rich woman who was rubbing her face against the cat and hugging it tightly.

"I almost feel sorry for the cat," Said Sakura.

"No wonder it ran away," said Sasuke.

"Ha ha, stupid cat, it's what you get," Naruto, whose face was still bleeding, said.

The lady went and thanked the Hokage and handed over the money for the mission. As she was leaving the Hokage turned to Team 7.

"Great job, Team 7, you're the fastest team to complete this mission, yet."

'You mean this isn't the first time?' they all thought.

"Now, your next assignment is another D-rank, you are going to help with the fall harvesting, the old couple on the outskirts of the village—"

"NO, NO MORE!" Naruto yelled, making everyone in the room stop and stare at him, "I want a real mission, one that will show you what I'm made of, not one so boring it makes me wish I were back in the academy or training."

Iruka, a brown-haired chuunin wearing a grey flak jacket black, long pants and shirt, a leaf hitai-ate, with a scar across his nose, stood up quickly, slamming his hands on the desk as he did, and spoke angrily to Naruto:

"Naruto! You are only a genin, all you're going to get is D-ranked missions, and you will complete them without complaint and—NARUTO! Are you even listening?"

Naruto had turned to the rest of his team and began talking about getting some ramen later, ignoring what Iruka was saying because he heard it too many times. When he heard Iruka yell at him he turned back and started talking.

"Well, I'm not going to do anymore missions until we get something worth our time and skills, I didn't become a ninja so that I could do someone else's work." Naruto folds his arms, turns back around and starts talking again.

'For once Naruto's right, we've done too many D-ranked missions.' Sasuke thought.

'Yeah, way to go Naruto!' – Sakura

'I agree with Naruto, but why does he have to be so annoying about it.' – Kakashi sighed

"Hahahahaha, so you want to prove yourself, eh? Well there is one C-ranked mission that would be right up your alley."

Right as he stopped talking there was a knock at the door. With a quick acknowledgement that the person could enter, the door opened and a man walked in the room. He was old, but looked able-bodied, he had a noticeable beer gut that served as his abdomen, he had a beard and glasses and his hair was grey. He wore a pointed hat, a towel around his shoulders, a green shirt with grey shorts and he carried a travelling pack.

"Ah, Mr. Tazuna, you're just in time, I was just assigning your mission to these fine shinobi."

Tazuna looked over at Team 7 and scoffed.

"You mean to tell me that these are the great ninja you've assigned to protect me, they're all kids, and who's the runt?"

"Hehehe, who's the runt he's talking about?" Naruto asked jokingly. Then he looked at his teammates and noticed that his eyes didn't exactly level with the others'. He immediately tried going at Tazuna, yelling threats, but was stopped by Kakashi.

"Naruto," Kakashi's voice rang with amusement, and a tone that said I-figured-he'd-do-this-some-time, as Naruto struggled against his grip on his collar, "We aren't supposed to kill the clientele."

The Hokage spoke up then, his amusement in Naruto's theatrics more efficiently masked. "I can assure you, Mr. Tazuna, that all of our shinobi are more than a match for a few bandits."

"Oh, alright, but only because of the tall one." Said Tazuna resignedly.

"Alright, now we've got that settled, you are dismissed; try to leave as soon as possible."

An hour later they all congregated at the village gates. Naruto was the last one there, but he was also the most excited.

"Wow, this'll be the first time I've ever been outside the village! Come on guys, and Sakura-chan, let's get this mission underway."

"Are you seriously telling me that this little runt is capable of protecting anyone?" Tazuna exclaims at Naruto's display of child-like wonder.

Naruto turns around angrily, but before he can do anything Kakashi says, "I assure you, my team is more than capable of taking out a few bandits."

"Bah, you and the boy and girl, but the runt looks like he wouldn't be able to even touch me."

This time Naruto is quick to respond, "Hey old man, I can go up against Sasuke with only one clone now. I could wipe the floor with you five hundred times and I wouldn't even break a sweat. One day, I'm going to be strong enough to become Hokage and you'll have no choice but to acknowledge my greatness."

Tazuna starts laughing, a half-hearted, grumpy-sounding laugh, for a moment, "You? A little runt like you becoming the leader of a shinobi village? Keep dreaming kid, a Kage has to be strong enough to protect their village and themselves, I doubt you could even stall for time."

Kakashi decided to intervene then, "Alright then, how about we get going now."

Tazuna starts walking down the road looking grumpy. The rest of them start going, though Naruto continues to scowl at Tazuna. No one says anything the rest of the day, until Kakashi says that they'll be camping a bit into the forest, and that they were about a third of the way to the Land of Waves. They unrolled their sleeping bags, though it was too warm to get in them yet. Tazuna set his a bit away from the others. For about an hour there was silence while they ate and settled into their sleeping bags as it became a bit colder.

One by one they fall asleep. Tazuna first, signified by his loud snoring, then Sasuke. Sakura, however, couldn't stop thinking about what Said Tazuna to Naruto.

'He was quiet this entire time.' She thought, concerned about how he was feeling, 'Normally, he never lets anyone get to him.'

She turns to look at him and he has his back to her.

"Naruto," she whispers. He doesn't reply, but she continues nonetheless.

"Naruto, don't let Tazuna get to you like that. He doesn't know anything about you, he doesn't know how hard you train, and he doesn't know how you never give up no matter how hard something is. Like you said, you can go head to head with Sasuke-kun with only one clone, and you'll only continue to get better. Tazuna doesn't realize who he's dealing with, all he sees is a little kid with a big dream and he hasn't seen how far you can go in such a short while. It may not be within the next few years, but there's no doubt in my mind that you'll become a great Hokage, so please cheer up Naruto, I hate to see you like this."

Naruto then starts to turn over onto his back, but he's asleep and his snoring is almost as loud as Tazuna's. Sakura's concern immediately turns to annoyance, but she tries not to shout at him. Instead she just turns away from him.

'Fine, just know that that was the first and last time I ever try to cheer you up.'

Feeling annoyed, and slightly embarrassed, she falls asleep.

* * *

><p>The next morning they pack up their bags and are quickly back to walking.<p>

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto whines, seeming like yesterday never happened, "When are we going to get to the Land of Waves?"

"We should reach water by evening—"

"Then we might as well camp there, my ride is supposed to be there in the morning," Tazuna spoke up.

"Okay, so we'll be there tomorrow morning."

"That's so boring, what are we supposed to do while we walk?"

"Watching out for bandits, reviewing team formations, talking, do whatever you want as long as it doesn't cause trouble."

After that, they walked in silence for a while with no one doing anything other than walking.

Then Sakura asked, "So, Mr. Tazuna, what's the Land of Waves like?"

"Well, it's a pretty small island just a little off the coast of the Land of Fire. It's not very prosperous, but we get by with the business we get from trading companies."

"Why, exactly, did you come to Konoha to enlist our help?"

This time Kakashi answered, "Because there are no shinobi there."

"What? How can there be no shinobi?"

"What for? They're a small island nation off the coast of a large nation; it's naturally defended on all sides, easily guarded by the residents. Also, it doesn't take a long time to get here from Konoha so they could send for help and we could be at their aid in a single day."

"I get it, so why exactly are you building a bridge, Mr. Tazuna?"

He's silent for a moment, and as he's opening his mouth to speak, two people burst out from under the ground on either side of Kakashi. Before anyone can react, spiked chains shot out of a glove on one of their hands, wrapped around Kakashi, firmly trapping him. Then they yanked the chains towards them, shredding Kakashi's body, like paper. Next, having taken care of the big threat, they charged toward Tazuna. Sakura drew a kunai from her pouch and jumped in front of Tazuna.

"Get behind me!"

The bandits launched their chains at her and Tazuna, only to be intercepted by shuriken. Turning in the direction they came in, the bandits saw Sasuke throwing more shuriken. They charged at him preparing to launch their chains out again, but Sasuke charged towards them and attacked them before they could react. He dropped to his hands, after throwing more shuriken and jumping forward, and he swung his legs in an arc hitting one on the head and knocking him into the other bandit. They recovered quickly, while Sasuke widened the space between them. They started charging again, but as soon as they were half-way towards him one of them changed directions and started running at Naruto. Naruto, who had been freaking out that Kakashi just died in front of him, saw the bandit coming at him and froze in fear.

'If they could kill Kakashi-sensei like that then I don't stand a chance.'

Sasuke had thrown the first guy out of the way and was running to assist Naruto, seeing that he was too scared to move, but he was too far away from them. As the bandit prepared to strike him Naruto had regained at least a little of his senses and dodged out of the way, just before the bandit struck where he had once been. The bandit tried to strike at him again, but Sasuke had caught up to them and knocked him out of the way. Naruto then realized that Sakura was by herself and started towards her. Sasuke did so as well and the two of them jumped in front of her and Tazuna, forming a sort of Y shape with Tazuna at back. The two bandits regained their senses and charged at them again. There was a flash of blue, grey and silver just then and the two bandits were suddenly having their bodies flown forward, while their heads stayed in one position: a headlock against their captor's sides.

"What's up?" Kakashi says smiling reassuringly.

"Kakashi-sensei, you're alive!" Naruto exclaims.

"But how? They came up so suddenly," Sakura asks.

"A good shinobi is never caught unawares," he begins, but seeing that they weren't satisfied with his answer he adds, "A while back I had notice a puddle of water. Normally, I wouldn't pay it any attentions; however, considering that it hasn't rained in weeks, I knew that it was unnatural. I would have taken them out earlier, but I needed to know what their target was," he looked directly at Tazuna and turned very serious, "I believe you owe us an explanation."

Tazuna hangs his head, puts a hand on his waist and sighs resignedly, "Alright, you got me."

He starts going on about how the Land of Waves was actually a rather prosperous land until recently. Then a man name Gato came and took over the trade and commerce and started hording the money all for himself. Then he told them about how Gato had started forcefully taking their money through taxes and the way he enforced these taxes was through having a bunch of thugs and bandits go around and threaten the villagers. He also told them that he and a few brave villagers had started building a bridge to the mainland so that Gato wouldn't be able to control their economy.

"That's why I came to Konoha, Gato will try to stop the bridge's construction and I had to make sure that it was finished."

Kakashi joined in then, "And the reason why you kept this mission under the guise of a C-rank mission is because you didn't have the money to pay for a higher ranked mission, but you didn't need to resort to such methods. Our Hokage would be more than happy to help out the Land of Waves and he would have let the method of payment slide, at least until you could afford it. Tricking us wouldn't have done you any good; it only would have made things worse. First, we would have found out that we had been tricked, as you just witnessed, and second, the way these missions are ranked is by how difficult they are. Only certain shinobi are assigned to certain missions and making this a C-rank would only lower your chances of success. You could have gotten me and my team killed, or captured, and what would happen then?"

"Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right, so now you're going to have us turn back, huh?"

"Now, now, I never said that."

"What? You mean you'll continue with the mission?"

"Well, I mean, since we're already this far. Besides, Naruto would pitch a fit if he didn't get a chance to show what he was made of."

"Yeah, if he's not too scared to move the next time there's a fight," Sasuke mocked.

Naruto was quickly enraged by the comment, "Hey, I was just caught off guard, is all! Next time, I'm going to be the one saving you all, because this time I'll be ready!" He finishes, glaring at Sasuke, full of malice.

He looks at Sakura, then Kakashi. 'Next time I'll be the one who comes in at the nick of time."

"Next time, I'll be the one saving you Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto looks at Kakashi with such a fierce look of determination that Kakashi knows that there would be no way of getting Naruto back to the village without completing the mission.

"Well, Mr. Tazuna, it's been decided, we'll continue with the mission as is."

Tazuna grunted a sound of thanks, not one to get overly emotional.

* * *

><p>A small boat was slowly rowed across an expanse of water. A thick fog surrounded it, making it hard, if not impossible, to see. It was dead quiet, the only sound being the feint splash as the oars hit the water, but the rower was careful to make the least amount of noise as he went.<p>

Team 7 and Tazuna woke up really early in the morning and waited for their transport. They didn't have to wait long though, for their aid had been told to come early. They started out with the motor on, but they had to turn it off close to the Land of Waves so they wouldn't draw attention from Gato's men. Even Naruto had been quiet, after asking why they turned off the motor.

They were rowing for hours, but eventually they arrived past the point of danger, when the open body of water narrowed into a wide river. Then they switched back to the motor and the dark mood brightened a little. The fog was lifting now and they good see more and more of the lush green forest the river ran through. They reached the dock that was their destination, thanked the man who transported them, and started walking directly to Tazuna's house. It was quite a ways away and they weren't exactly in the clear yet, but everyone was more relaxed now, though they continued to be wary of their surroundings.

Naruto was gradually becoming bored of just walking and started listening intently for anything that might be around them. Soon it got to the point where he would look in all directions, but the only sounds to be heard were the chirping of a few birds. Suddenly Naruto ahead a little and stopped, hand above his eyes shielding them from the sun so he could look around more closely. He saw that they were about on the edge of a clearing, the tree line stopping in a circular figure around a lake. Then the bushes started rustling next to them. Naruto quickly pulled out a kunai and threw it into the bushes.

Naruto ran over to the bushes hoping to find someone stuck with his kunai, but instead a white rabbit was in front of a tree with the kunai just above its head; it had been scared unconscious and was sprawled against the tree. Naruto quickly realized his mistake and rushed to its aid. He picked it up and hugged it to him and he was apologizing profusely to it.

"Naruto, you almost killed that poor animal; stop screwing around," Sakura exclaimed.

'That's a snow hare, but why's its fur still white?' thought Kakashi. 'It's too early for them to have their white coat. This one must have been kept in-doors, but that still leaves why it's out here instead of with its owner.' Then he realized:

"Move away!" he said as he himself jumped off the road.

The others did the same, Sakura pushing back Tazuna, just as a huge sword flew along the road, arcing down to meet whoever still stood on the road, then arcing back up and embedding itself in a tree. Moments after it did there was a blur and a man was suddenly standing on it. He had spiky black hair, black sandals, white leg and wrist warmers which had black blotches on them, much like the pattern of a cow's; his pants were grey and he only had a belt on his torso. He wore his headband on the side of his head, a slash across the emblem, and he hid the lower half of his face with bandages. Naruto, still holding the rabbit, then released the rabbit into the woods; it would just be in the way. The man then started to speak, his voice deep and gravely.

"So, you were able to see through my ruse. I would have been disappointed if the 'great Kakashi Hatake' were defeated with such ease."

"It seems I'm the one to be disappointed, running from your own village just to end up working for someone like Gato. I thought you were above such things, Zabuza Momochi."

"Wait a minute. Kakashi-sensei, do you know this guy?" Naruto asked.

"Not personally, but what I do know isn't pleasant. Zabuza Momochi, he's a rouge ninja from Kirigakure, the Village Hidden in the Mist, and he's very dangerous. I only recognized him because of Kubikiri, the massive Kubikiri Houcho, which marks him as one of the Great Ninja Swordsman of the Mist."

"That is one big sword." Naruto commented.

"Now, Kakashi, why don't you just let me take out Tazuna, like you said, I am above working with the likes of Gato, usually, but I don't have much choice in the matter. However, the sooner I finish with this, the sooner I can be on my way."

"If it's money you want, why don't you just kill Gato and take his money, you'd be doing more than yourself a favor."

"I would, if it were only that. See, I've run into a bit of a snag and he allows me to avoid it, for the time being at least."

"You mean the hunter-nin of Kirigakure, so they found you and now you hide behind Gato. I think my respect for you just went down. Zabuza Momochi, 'Demon of the Mist', scared by a couple of hunter-nin." Then he addressed the others in a lower tone so Zabuza couldn't hear: "Basically, he's being tracked by ANBU-class shinobi, who will attempt to kill rouge ninja, erasing their existence so that the secrets of the village won't fall into the wrong hands."

"Laugh all you want, Kakashi, if you were in my position would you be so sure to pick someone up to your standard?"

"May-be, but as long as I'm not you, I might as well keep you from doing what you came to do."

Zabuza hopped down from his perch, but as he was falling he grabbed Kubikiri, swung out towards the road, dislodging it from the tree, and he was facing the other side of the road. He swung Kubikiri in an arc and threw it at Kakashi, who was away from the rest of the group. He jumped out of the way by kicking off the edge of the flat of the blade, causing the sword's tip to bury itself into the ground, then he touched ground and launched himself away from the sword. Zabuza launched himself toward Kakashi as he touched the ground. He grabbed the sword as he neared it and he swung it at Kakashi, using the size of the sword to throw him farther forward as well.

Kakashi lifted his legs and kicked off of the top of the sword and flew a few more meters and hit ground. The tip of Zabuza's sword bit into the ground again, but instead of launching towards Kakashi again, he did a U turn using the sword as a pivot, and went towards the other four. Kakashi cursed and sped towards the others.

Naruto broke off from the group and charged at Zabuza and as he swung Kubikiri at him Naruto jumped over it, and used it to propel himself at Zabuza, but Zabuza bashed him away using his free hand. Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke and another Naruto launched at him from a tree next to Zabuza. Zabuza swung Kubikiri, cleaving that Naruto in half just as another Naruto came up from under Zabuza, making him jump back to avoid him. However, Sasuke was behind him and attempted to kick him in the head.

Zabuza ducked and kicked back at Sasuke only to have it blocked by him. Zabuza swung Kubikiri at Sasuke, just as Sakura charged at him from behind, with a kunai in hand, and struck Zabuza where the heart is. Zabuza's movements stopped his sword just centimeters from Sasuke, and then he burst into water. Zabuza's voice rang out then, echoing across the clearing so as not to give away his position.

"Hahahaha, so you destroyed a water clone, eh. It seems I've underestimated you, but don't think this means you can beat me. Those clones have half the amount of power that I have. Now I should show you why they call me the 'Demon of the Mist."

As they were fighting, a light fog was beginning to settle in, but it got heavier while he was talking and soon they were unable to see more than five meters in front of them. When he finished Team 7 formed back up near Tazuna so they could protect him.

"I hope you don't think that's going to work," his voice rings out again. "There is no defense that I can't get past. In this mist I can move as quietly as an ant and I can show up anywhere at any time."

Just then there was a shimmering in between Tazuna and Team 7 and as it faded Zabuza was standing there, surprising all of them. Then the four of them started fading away.

"What?"

They faded away and Kakashi was standing where Tazuna had been just moments prior, and he put a kunai to Zabuza's throat.

"You hadn't forgotten about me, did you?"

"How did you—"

"Genjutsu, I put you under just as you appeared behind the others."

"Heh, guess I got a little careless. I really shouldn't let my guard down around you, Kakashi; I'll have to be more careful in the future."

"There is no future for you, it's over."

"Don't be so sure of yourself Kakashi, I'm also someone you don't want to let your guard down around."

Zabuza then burst into water. Kakashi let out a short gasp and the real Zabuza appeared next to him swinging Kubikiri at him. Kakashi was just fast enough to avoid being cleaved in two, but he did not avoid the kick that followed. With the combined force of the kick and the momentum created by the massive sword he was knocked him out onto the water. Zabuza was slow to follow though, as he wanted to make the fight last, and Kakashi had time to get to his feet on the water.

"Well, well Zabuza, I knew you were good, but I hadn't figured I'd have this much trouble with you. I guess I have to stop holding back and use that."

As Kakashi was talking he lifted his hand to his hitai-ate and pulled it up to uncover his left eye. The eye was red and had three black dots in the iris forming a triangular pattern. The fog had lifted enough to allow the others to see Kakashi and Sasuke had recognized the significance of the eye.

"That's the Sharingan!"

Naruto and Sakura look at him questioningly and he continues.

"It's a Doujutsu Kekkei Genkai, an ocular bloodline ability of the Uchiha Clan. With it you can see through an enemy's jutsu and copy it; you can put somebody under a genjutsu, or tell if someone is in one; you can see fast-moving objects more clearly and predict an enemy's next move. But it's an Uchiha bloodline trait; how did Kakashi obtain a Sharingan eye?"

Zabuza walked out onto the water, "So, you've decided to get serious, huh? It's been a while since I've had such a good fight; let's draw out your death."

"I will not die this morning."

"Heh, let's see about that."

Zabuza disappeared and reappeared behind Kakashi already swinging Kubikiri.

"Too slow!" Kakashi yelled as he lopped off Zabuza's head with a kunai. The sword stopped and Zabuza burst into water. Four Zabuzas came up on Kakashi on all sides. Kakashi threw three kunai with paper bombs attached to three Zabuzas and engaged the fourth in a small duel with another kunai. Kakashi ended it by knocking Kubikiri from his hands with the kunai and slashing his throat a moment later. All were water clones and Kakashi was becoming bored with the ease of it all.

"If things keep going as they are, Zabuza, I just might have to take out a book to keep myself entertained."

"Hahahaha, don't worry Kakashi, things will only become harder and harder from now on."

Ten Zabuzas appeared around Kakashi, but three broke off and started going after the others, while the remaining ones charged Kakashi.

"You're team may be able to beat one clone together, but how well would they do against three."

The five clones charge at the three genin. Naruto summons four clones and charges at the middle one. They encircled Zabuza and spread out, two in front, two in back, and one in the middle. The two on his left charged forward and Zabuza pivoted on his left foot and sliced them in half and they disappeared. As he started to attack the left two, the right two charged at him, throwing shuriken as they did. Using the momentum of the spin Zabuza kept turning to block the projectiles with his sword. As his sword came into place, however, another Naruto burst out of the ground below Zabuza. But Zabuza had expected it and immediately jumped away from Naruto. Then three kunai struck him in the back from a Naruto that snuck up behind him.

The second water clone went after Sakura as Naruto had begun to fight off the first. She created four clones as well and charged back at the clone. The clone slashes at all five of them, but goes through each of them as if they weren't there. The clone noticed that another Sakura had sneaked up behind it, kunai out, and it continued to swing, pivoting on its left foot. Kubikiri passed through that Sakura as well and then a kunai came out of his chest and it burst into water.

Sasuke took on the third clone at the same time as the others. He charged at it and as the clone slashed at him he jumped over Kubikiri and threw a few shuriken at the clone, which lifted its arm to block them. Sasuke continued to fly at the clone and it slashed at him vertically, but Sasuke grabbed onto the hole in Kubikiri and pulled himself out of the way by flipping. As Sasuke was flipping he brought his foot around and kicked the clone in the side of the head sending it to the ground. As it hit the ground Sasuke threw a kunai at it and it embedded in the clone's chest.

Kakashi had finished off the clones attacking and had been watching, his worrying quickly turning to calm pride as they got rid of their respective enemies. Suddenly, a hand came out of the water under him and the water around him shot up and over him forming a sphere. Zabuza came fully out of the water and landed next to Kakashi.

"Hahahaha, you let your guard down, Kakashi. You're students are quite impressive, but how long can they keep it up?"

More clones came up around him and attacked the others. They held out quite a while longer, but exhaustion was quickly setting in. As they finished the last wave, they were given a brief moment's respite as Zabuza stopped to congratulate them.

"Well done on lasting so long, but I'm afraid you won't last long enough to see tomorrow."

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, just go! Run away with Tazuna! Zabuza's clones can only go so far away from him; run now so you can call for backup," Kakashi pleaded.

"No, way Kakashi-sensei, I told you I'd show what I was made of and now I can't back down. You just hang in there, I'll get you out in no time," Naruto refused.

"You'd do well to follow his advice, you brat," Zabuza created another clone. "If you stay you'll only get yourself killed."

"I've got more than enough energy to kill more of your clones!"

The clone suddenly appeared in front of Naruto and kicked him in the chest, knocking him a few feet back and leaving him sprawled on the ground. He got back up only to notice that his hitai-ate had fallen off, which the clone then stomped on it. Naruto was further enraged by this.

"Why don't you all just give up, you're never going to beat me."

"That's what you think! I'll beat you single-handedly!"

Naruto charged at the clone yelling as he went. The clone kicked Naruto away and sent him back to the others. He got back up and he had the hitai-ate in his hand and tied it back on his forehead.

'The idiot, why'd he do that just to get back his forehead protector?' Sakura asked mentally.

Then Naruto started whispering, "Hey, Sasuke," Sasuke inclines his head to show he was listening. "I have a plan to free Kakashi, you up for it."

"What is it?"

Naruto explains his plan to him.

Sasuke smirks, "Wow, you actually have a good idea, for once."

Naruto, glaring at Sasuke but disregarding his snide remark, summons a large amount of clones and charges at the clone again. They all jump on him, but he easily throws them back with a swing of Kubikiri. As Naruto's clones disappear he throws a Fuuma—Demon Wind—Shuriken to Sasuke. He opens it up and stands for a second, (looking bad-ass as only one with a giant shuriken can), and he throws it, putting as much force behind it as he can by spinning, at the Zabuza holding Kakashi captive.

Zabuza remains as calm as ever as he catches the weapon. Then he sees that there was another shuriken hidden in the first one's shadow and he just barely jumps over it. The shuriken went behind him and then disappeared into smoke. It cleared quickly and Naruto appeared, throwing a kunai as he did. Zabuza was still in the air as the kunai was flying towards the left side of his back, so in order to avoid it he launched himself to the left, thus releasing his hold on his water prison. The sphere of water fell back into the lake and Kakashi was finally free from it. Zabuza curses and jumps away facing Kakashi.

"See Kakashi-sensei, I told you I'd be the one saving you," said Naruto.

"Well Naruto, I'm impressed you came up with such an idea yourself. See Zabuza, my students are more than capable of defeating you. As for me, you'll never defeat me," said Kakashi.

"Let's see about that!"

Zabuza starts running in an arc towards Kakashi, but Kakashi moves the same way. Zabuza stops and goes in the other direction and Kakashi follows suit. Zabuza stops and poses with one hand in the air and one in front of his face, pointing his index fingers towards the sky; Kakashi does so as well at roughly the same time.

"Copying my moves isn't going to defeat me Kakashi!"

Zabuza launches himself at Kakashi and slashes Kubikiri at him, but Kakashi had jumped out of the way. Kubikiri enters the water and Zabuza tries to launch himself using it, but the effect is dulled since the water is less immovable than the ground. He's launched into range of Kakashi and he slashes again. Kubikiri cuts Kakashi in half, then Kakashi disappears in smoke and two halves of a log come out of it. Kakashi launches out of the water behind Zabuza.

They circle each other more, Kakashi mimicking every move Zabuza makes, annoying him more and more. Eventually Zabuza's annoyance turns into panic as he realizes that Kakashi was moving slightly faster than him, just enough to keep an untrained eye oblivious to what Kakashi was doing: leading Zabuza's movements, instead of following them.

'How the hell is he predicting my movements?'

Eventually, Zabuza stops moving and decides to end the battle.

"Enough Kakashi! I'll destroy you with this move?"

Zabuza and Kakashi form multiple hand seals. Kakashi was still moving faster than him though, and Zabuza's panic rises.

'How does he know which jutsu I'm performing?'

Suddenly, as Zabuza is watching Kakashi, Kakashi's shadow appears behind him, but it's not shaped like him, rather it is a reflection of Zabuza. Zabuza's panic reaches its peak and he stops making the seals and drops his guard in despair, giving Kakashi the opening he needed. He completed the jutsu—Suiryuudan no Jutsu or Water Dragon Projectile Technique—and the water began swirling around him, slowly rising into the air and taking the shape of a dragon.

The water dragon loomed menacingly for another second, and then it swooped down on him closing its mighty maw over Zabuza, encasing him in a suffocating case of water. It then proceeds to pick him up and smash him into the ground next to the lake. The wall of water seemed to have no end for a few moments, then the tail of the dragon came out of the lake and the last of the crushing liquid slammed into Zabuza.

Zabuza laid there for a minute, but he regained consciousness and started to stand up. The process was slow and he shook with exhaustion. He eventually made it to his feet, but at that moment Kakashi stood behind him with a kunai to his throat.

"It's over Zabuza…die," Kakashi said morbidly.

At that moment three senbon were embedded into his neck killing him instantly. Kakashi looked in the direction that they came from and saw a young man with a mask on. His mask was white with two black slits in it, with a red two strips of red, one that curled just slightly, and then another above it that curled in a wave shape, over the mouth, and had four slanted wavy lines etched into it. He was slender, short, and had black hair. He wore a moss green, striped turtle-neck sweater and a split skirt in matching color that reached down to his knees. Over that he wore a green-blue short kimono with white edges, and around his waist was a green-brown sash.

"Forgive me for arriving so late, and I thank you for weakening him, but you need to leave the rest to me," the unknown teen said.

"Hey, who the heck are you?" Naruto, who swam to shore while Kakashi and Zabuza were fighting, yelled.

"It's okay Naruto, he's a hunter-nin, someone who hunts down those who've defected from their village, and kills and destroys the missing-nin," Kakashi explained

"Why?"

"So that if he's killed by an enemy village, his body can't be used to learn their village's secrets. A shinobi is useful even in death; with every technique they've learned, another shinobi can dissect it and learn about the technique it learned."

"Yes, we've been tracking Zabuza for a long time," the hunter-nin was suddenly standing next to Zabuza's body and he proceeded to pick it up. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go and dispose of Zabuza."

A whirlwind picked up around him and Zabuza and they disappeared, leaving no trace. Kakashi covers his Sharingan eye, takes a step, flinches and collapses.

"Kakashi-sensei, what's wrong?" Sakura asked, alarmed.

Kakashi starts chuckling weakly, "It's seems I've used up quite a bit of chakra. Don't worry, I'm just exhausted, that Sharingan takes a huge amount of chakra to maintain for a non-Uchiha."

"Then allow me to carry you," Tazuna suggested. "It's the least I could do for saving my life."

Tazuna stepped forward, picked Kakashi up, slung Kakashi's arm over his shoulders, and started walking in the direction of his house, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke following suit.

* * *

><p>AN: I just can't seem to get this time-table thing right, so from now on I won't promise a new chapter every month, I'll just make sure it doesn't exceed a two months. Also, I hope my descriptions are okay; I didn't quite know how to describe Sakura's clothes, but I think I did well on the fights (the reason I took so long to finish this chapter). I don't exactly know how I'll precede from here, so the next chapter or so might take a while. Leave reviews, if you wish, and have a good daynight/evening.


	5. Land of Waves Continued

AN: Yay, another chapter. This one will be pretty short, but I'll try my best to make it interesting.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, anime or manga, those belong to Musashi Kishimoto and the animation studio's staff and cast.

"**Kyuubi/Inner Sakura"**

_Flashbacks_

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Written Words

* * *

><p>Team 7 had been sitting around for two days now and they were getting pretty bored. Tazuna had carried Kakashi from the clearing to the little hut where his daughter, Tsunami, lived. Kakashi had passed out soon after the fight with Zabuza and had woken up the next day unable to move more than a few inches. So the entire team had spent the days resting and Naruto was quickly becoming restless. He kept thinking about the events of the past two days.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Kakashi had just woken up and they were talking about what they would do next now that their biggest threat had just been neutralized. Not that there would be much to do now that there was no threat. Then they started reviewing their fight earlier, Kakashi congratulating them for the impressive manner with which they dispatched a good amount of enemies, whether clones or not. <em>

_"Man, the only thing that I wish didn't happen was that guy coming in and taking Zabuza out while we were the ones who fought him," Naruto said._

"_Don't worry about it Naruto, he was just doing his job as a hunter-nin," Sakura reasoned._

"_I guess. What does a hunter-nin do with the body after they take it Kakashi-sensei?"_

"_They burn the body. They have to be sure that the body can't be used to obtain the secrets of a village so they have to chop up the body and burn it and then they scatter the ashes."_

_Everyone was silent for a little until Naruto broke the silence._

"_I still don't feel right about just leaving Zabuza to be taken care of by someone we don't know."_

"_I agree it's not exactly like we have any reason to trust someone from another village, and I feel uneasy about the whole situation." Sasuke said._

"_I'm not so sure of it myself," Kakashi said. "There's something that I'm forgetting, something that makes me feel like our work here isn't done."_

"_Well, yeah. Of course we aren't done. We still have to help Tazuna build the bridge and keep Gato's men from attacking him. We don't know what other sort of minions he's got and I think we should prepare for another encounter like the one with Zabuza." Sakura reasoned._

"_That's all very possible, Sakura, but going from two chuunin level ninja who gave us no more than a moment's trouble, to an S-rank missing ninja, who was one of the great ninja swordsmen of the mist? I'm not so sure they'd send out the big guns so soon and if there was someone stronger, I think they'd have attacked by now, us being so close to home and already tired from fighting Zabuza and all. No, I know there's no way for there to be anyone else we need to worry about. If I could just remember why I'm still on edge, I'd be able to discern our situation." Kakashi said._

"_There has been one thing that bothered me the most about that hunter-nin guy," Naruto said. "Why did he bother carrying Zabuza's body away from the clearing if all he needed to do was burn it? It's not like we were in any shape to learn Zabuza's secrets without the hunter-nin stopping us. We genin sure don't know how to do it, either, and Kakashi was totally out of it, why go through so much effort when it wasn't necessary."_

_Just then realization dawned on Kakashi._

"_That's exactly right, Naruto. That's what I needed to remember: hunter-nin are supposed to burn the body on the spot. He also used senbon instead of a kunai or shuriken. Senbon are used for treatments like acupuncture and other medical remedies that require precision. Anyone with knowledge of the human body will be able to hit certain points in the body to stop a heart beat temporarily."_

"_What does that mean, Kakashi-sense?" Sakura asked._

"_It means we've been tricked. Zabuza is alive."_

* * *

><p>The rest of the time had been spent helping Tazuna fix things up around the house. They also helped Tazuna grab groceries and supplies they were going to need to build the bridge. Other than that they just rested from the first exhausting fight with Zabuza and dreading another encounter with him, and the fake hunter-nin, who, they thought, might be with him during the next fight, creating an even fiercer battle, even if the mystery shinobi wasn't more than chuunin level. The dread in Naruto quickly turned to anxiety, built that up to restlessness, and finally became annoyance at the lack of action. Suddenly, Naruto stood up with a fierce look of determination on his face.<p>

"I'm tired of waiting around Kakashi, if we're supposed to fight Zabuza and that other guy, we need to get stronger. It's been two days, and you've slept the time between meals, so I'm sure you can at least walk. Can you teach us something that will help us?"

"Well, I guess you're right, we do have to prepare for the future," Kakashi sighed sitting up in his bed, "but, I will need help if we are to go and train."

"I can carry you if you want."

"No, no, that won't be necessary. I'll just need some crutches."

Naruto went and asked Tazuna for a pair of crutches and returns to Kakashi. He needed a little bit of help to stand up, but it went smoothly otherwise. Tazuna pointed them in the direction of a small clearing in the forest where they could train without being spied on and they started in the direction. It took about half an hour to get there, but Naruto was just happy to be outside and training again.

"Alright Kakashi-sensei, what are we going to learn?"

"Well, you guys were pretty well off when we fought Zabuza before. The only problem was that he sent too many clones at you and you got tired."

"Yeah, every time I killed one another took its place and I couldn't make as many clones every time I needed more."

"Exactly, you guys need to learn better chakra control, which is what I want to teach you today using the tree climbing exercise."

Kakashi puts his hands together in a ram sign to gather his chakra. A puff of dust blew away from his feet, as if there was a small gust of wind, and he started walking towards a tree. Instead of stopping right in front of it, though, he put his foot on the tree and continued walking. He walked straight up the tree trunk and didn't come to a stop until he was hanging upside down from the first branch of the tree—nearly ten to fifteen feet high.

"Well, impressive, huh?

Sasuke didn't show it, but you could see he was intrigued by this ability. However, the same couldn't be said for Sakura or even Naruto (how is this possible!). Naruto did, though, have a pretty smug look on his face.

"Don't everyone talk at once. What's wrong, and why are you smiling Naruto; I thought you of all people would exclaim with pure excitement at something like this."

"Hehehe, that's because I've already mastered this technique."

"Really now? Well, just so you know, you can't really master something like chakra control, not even us jonin have complete mastery over chakra."

"Whatever, all I'm saying is that I've already done all I can with this exercise, Sakura-chan, too."

"Why don't you show us you're 'mastery' of the exercise, Mr. Uzumaki?"

Naruto did as Kakashi just did moments before and then started walking towards the tree. Just like Kakashi, Naruto didn't stop once he got to the base, he started walking up the tree, but instead of stopping at the first branch he continued on and on until he got to the very top of the trunk and stopped standing on the point at the top of the tree.

"Whoa," Kakashi murmured as Naruto walked back down. "Naruto, I've never seen a brand new genin do that before, especially not before they're jonin instructor taught them such a technique."

"Hehe, well it's not like this was my first try."

* * *

><p><em>One Saturday morning, Naruto and Sakura were out at training field seven and Sakura was teaching Naruto another training exercise.<em>

"_Naruto, I don't think that there are any more jutsus that we can learn at our current level, but there is a way that we can get to that level. If we want to learn to use any elemental ninjutsu, or jutsu above c-level, then we need to learn how to better control our chakra. The easiest way to learn how to do this is by climbing a tree."_

"_But Sakura-chan; how is climbing a tree going to help us learn how to control our chakra better? I've climbed many trees, but I've never needed chakra to do it."_

"_Just watch this."_

_Sakura made the ram hand sign and started to gather up chakra. A puff of dust blew out away from her feet and she started walking towards the tree. She stuck her foot on the tree and started climbing up it and Naruto exclaimed in amazement._

"_Wow, Sakura-chan, I get it now. You use chakra to walk up the tree instead of using your arms."_

"_Yeah, now you try it," Sakura said from atop one of the branches._

_Naruto did the same as Sakura did and started walking towards the tree. However, when he started to walk up the tree, he took two steps up it and his foot slipped and he tumbled to the ground onto his butt._

"_Ow! Hey, what happened?"_

"_You didn't focus enough chakra to your feet, so you were unable to stick to it, but don't worry, that's exactly why we're doing this technique, so you can get better at this type of thing."_

"_Ok, Sakura-chan."_

_Naruto went at this for another few hours and was barely able to get more than ten feet up the tree. Eventually, Naruto ended up having to take a break after being thoroughly annoyed by the fact that he was unable to improve as fast as he normally did. During all of his struggling, though, Sakura had walked all up and down one of the really tall trees, which amazed Naruto, but it also made him a little more annoyed, not because it was Sakura, but that someone was able to do something so much more easily than he can, after working on it for the same amount of time._

"_Sakura-chaaan! This exercise is really hard, how do you do it so easily."_

"_Well, it's not all that easy for me, really, but the book says that those who have less chakra reserves have an easier time with it, so I guess it's just because you have so much more chakra than I do."_

"_Really? Well, does the book say anything about a technique that makes this a bit easier?"_

"_No, but… Oh! I know! Naruto, there is a way for you to learn this more easily."_

"_Really, what is it?"_

"_You can use Kage Bunshin right?"_

"_Yeah, but how would that technique help?"_

"_Well, when you use Kage Bunshin, you divide you're chakra evenly between each clone. Also, the book says that Kage Bunshin is useful for learning information because you can have a clone sneak into the enemy base and even if it's captured or killed, then you won't be hurt and once the clone is dispelled then the user learns everything that the clone learned. This includes learning techniques and jutsu."_

"_You mean that if I had learned how to use Kage Bunshin before then I would have been able to skip class and still keep from looking like a retard in front of the class?"_

"_Naruto, even if you learned it before, do you think you would have cared enough to use it for that purpose." Sakura said in a dry tone._

"…_.no…."_

"_Exactly. Anyway, you should make a few clones and have all of them climb trees. And once they get to the top of each tree, you dispel one or two, that way you can quickly learn how much chakra you need to focus to your feet, and you can increase your chakra level after you do and adjust to that level."_

"_Wow, Sakura-chan, you're really smart."_

"_Thank you, Naruto. That makes me happy to hear that."_

"_Glad to hear it, now, let's try that again, shall we."_

* * *

><p>"After that it only took me a few more days to be able to get to the top without any clones."<p>

"That's actually rather impressive Naruto, wouldn't you say Sasuke?"

"Tch, if Naruto mastered this technique in a few days, I'll master it in two."

"Really now? Okay, I'll give you an entire week to master this exercise, because that's when I should be fully recovered. "

"But what if the enemy attacks before then," Sakura asked.

"After what I did to Zabuza, and after being stabbed in those pressure points to make it look like he died, Zabuza would need a week to recover and Gato wouldn't send anyone else. Even in this state I'm more than a challenge for him. Well, I'm going to head back to the house, so behave your selves. Oh! And it'd be a good idea to get a running start when you practice Sasuke!"

Kakashi started heading in the direction of Tazuna's hut while Naruto and Sakura moved away from Sasuke so that they could spar without hindering his ability to practice climbing the tree. Sasuke was still thinking about Naruto climbing the tree so expertly.

'Naruto was able to climb the tree by himself after only a few days, so this shouldn't take me more than a few tries, especially since Sakura climbed the tree with such ease even without practicing.'

Sasuke took out a kunai to record his progress and focused chakra at the soles of his feet and ran at the tree. When he got to the base of the tree he started up the trunk. When he got half–way to the first branch the bark under his right foot blew off of the tree and Sasuke could sense that he was about to fall off, so he marked the tree as high as he could and did a back flip to avoid falling on his backside.

'Hmph, no big deal, it was just my first try, and Kakashi said that this was a hard skill to master.'

So, Sasuke tried a few more times, each time he got a little bit higher than the last, but after an hour he was barely able to reach the first branch.

'Alright, so it'll take me longer to master this exercise, but I shouldn't take more than a day at most.'

After that, he tried and tried and tried, but when they were called in from training Sasuke had only gotten to the second branch.

Sakura saw his progress and exclaimed in excitement, "Great job Sasuke-kun, Naruto was only able to get that high by himself after completing training with all four of his clones, which took the whole first day."

However, Sasuke was not as happy with such a level of progress, he grunted to keep Sakura from noticing how unhappy he was, but on the inside he was raging.

'Damn it! An entire day and I wasn't able to get even half-way up the tree. And according to what Sakura said about Naruto needing four clones means that I have one fifth of his amount of chakra and he can control my amount more than I can.'

Sasuke was fuming over this the entire time they were walking back to the house and the more he thought about it the more he became frustrated by his lack of progress. They got back into the house and they were greeted by the smell of freshly made food and when they entered the dining room, Kakashi, Tazuna and Tsunami were sitting and talking to each other, which stopped as soon as the three genin entered.

"Ah, you're back. How was training; did Sasuke get more than half-way up the tree, because if he didn't then I can guarantee you won't master this training tomorrow." Kakashi said, taunting Sasuke.

"Nope, he only made it about a fourth of the way up, just like me after my first day, and I had a taller tree," Naruto told Kakashi with the utmost look of satisfaction on his face.

Without a sound Sasuke took his seat around the table and started filling his plate, looking very annoyed, which gave Kakashi and Naruto an elated feeling because now Sasuke can't look like as much of a show off. Sakura, however, took Sasuke's side and bonked Naruto on the head. Not as hard as she would have back in their academy days, but still enough to send him flailing to the ground.

"Stop taunting Sasuke-kun, Naruto. You're tree was the same height, and you had the help of your clones."

Sasuke just sat there, a look of mild annoyance on his face, but seething with rage on the inside. He couldn't understand why he wasn't doing any better than Naruto did, when he had always been the one who did better, a whole lot better, than anyone of the other academy students. He brooded over it throughout dinner and still couldn't find an answer, and he fell asleep angry.

The next morning, they went out to train again. Naruto and Sakura were busy sparring, Sakura fending off three Narutos with relative ease, and vice-versa but not enough for the exercise to be unhelpful. Sasuke continued to work at climbing the tree and became more and more annoyed after every failed attempt to climb the tree. By the time they were called in, however, Sasuke had made it half-way up the tree, not that that would ease his anger, but it would be a good position for only his second day training if he weren't Sasuke. This time, no one commented on it at dinner, but the annoyance was building and it now showed on his face.

As he was getting ready for bed there was a knock on the door of his room. He went and opened the door and found Kakashi standing there. Sasuke tried shutting the door, but was stopped by Kakashi's hand.

"Now, now Sasuke, I'm not here to try to burst you're ego, though I hope the work has already started after today. I'm here to give you some advice."

"I don't need it."

"Oh, but you do," Kakashi said, walking into the room. Sasuke closed the door and Kakashi continued talking.

"I know that you've been annoyed at not being able to complete your training in the time you gave yourself, but I also know that you're annoyed over something else: Naruto, that is, that you aren't actually better than him."

"Tch, I couldn't care less for that loser."

"See, I know you're lying, because you couldn't stop staring at him in anger all through dinner. Also, I've seen you train yourself, and I know that you don't get angry over being unable to master a technique, unless if you compare your progress with that of another's, mostly Itachi, but occasionally one of your former classmates."

Kakashi paused to see if Sasuke would respond and he didn't, which only confirmed what Kakashi said, so he continued.

"Personally, I think it's a good thing. It shows you that you aren't as almighty as you think that you are, and it shows that you consider Naruto to be more than just a nuisance. Now, you wanna know why Naruto has been doing better than you? It's because he has been receiving help from Sakura in order to become better, while you sit at home and attack a tree until the day that you finally wear through it and break it down, at which point you go and attack another tree. That's not a good way to better you're taijutsu skills and there's no way that it helps your ninjutsu."

"I don't need any help from either of those two."

"Maybe not them specifically, but who else will help you. I certainly won't help you outside of the exercises that I prepare on our training days. I would also be more likely to help out Naruto and Sakura because they get the importance of teamwork, and employ it beyond just helping each other until the mission is over. You still don't have a proper understanding of teamwork because you don't consider Naruto or Sakura to be your equals, which causes you to get away from them as soon as you can. Naruto has been trying to do something about his weaknesses, that's why he's gone farther than you, so stop sulking and ask him for help, I guarantee that you will become more powerful, a lot faster that way."

Sasuke didn't answer, but just stood there with a look of annoyance, but Kakashi could tell that his words had planted a seed of doubt in Sasuke's mind about how he was going about training.

"Well, it's getting late. You won't complete your training tomorrow, but you will make it in under a week, at the rate you're going. Goodnight, Sasuke."

Kakashi left the room and Sasuke fell asleep soon after. The next day went exactly how Kakashi said it would, with Sasuke almost getting to the top, but not quite. The day after, however, met with greater success. Sasuke had finally made it to the top and though he thought it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, he still felt triumphant enough to actually enjoy dinner. Kakashi admitted at dinner that he had thought it would take longer and was at a loss at what to do next. They went to sleep and in the morning, instead of going to the clearing, they went to the river instead. The current was slow, but the water was deep and the water was freezing cold. Kakashi stopped at the edge of the water and turned to the others.

"Alright guys, since we're all done with that exercise I think we might as well go ahead with the next level. Another thing that I realized when fighting Zabuza was that you guys were unable to fight with me after I jumped onto the water with Zabuza, which was good at the time, but now we may have to fight on land and on water."

"Oh yeah, I had wondered whether that lake was really just a shallow pond, but when Naruto and Sasuke saved you Naruto had gone completely under the water. I would have brought it up earlier, but I had completely forgotten when the battle was over." Sakura said.

"Yeah, so is it safe to assume that neither you nor Naruto have tried this out."

"No."

"I expected as much. Anyway, why don't we get on with it? I trust you don't need me to give you a demonstration."

"Heh, I won't need any help; I'll be skating all up and down this river in three days time, believe it!"

Naruto made nine clones, and then all ten of them focused chakra to their feet and charged forward. Each of them stepped on the surface of the water for a second, then as each of them were about to put their other foot down all of them felt their foot on the water lose the feeling of the water underneath their feet. For a second it was like they hovered above the water then they all suddenly disappeared into the water. The next moment all of them jumped out screaming about how cold the water was and a few of them were even expelled. Sakura burst out laughing, while Kakashi was chuckling, and even Sasuke had a grin on his face, though whether he thought it was funny or just pathetic was unknown.

"GOOD KAMI-SAMA! Kakashi-sensei! What the hell happened?"

"Walking on water is a bit different than walking steep solid walls." Kakashi said, trying to suppress the urge to laugh uncontrollably.

"A tree is a solid mass of wood that rarely ever shifts, while water is a substance that is constantly shifting. In order to walk on water you need to be able to change your chakra output constantly in accordance to the way the water moves. Even the smallest ripples need to be accounted for and, as you just experienced, the consequences could be very uncomfortable and even life threatening in some cases."

Naruto had crawled out of the water by now and was noticeably shivering, but he was fine, just cold. He and the remaining clones tried again, slowly this time, and this time they were able to get three steps out until he had to jump back in order to keep from falling into the water. Sasuke and Sakura joined in at this time, each far enough away from the other so they wouldn't be too bothered by the ripples each of them caused. Sasuke was able to get five steps out and Sakura was able to get ten.

"Alright guys, your goal is to get to the other side. I'll see you guys later." With that, Kakashi left them alone.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for taking so long, and I know this hardly makes up for it, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. I think one of the reasons why it's hard for me to focus on adding chapters is because I don't get much joy from writing. Also, a lot of people have done cannon fanfics where Sakura turns out liking Naruto sooner than in the manga and on a much bigger scale, so it doesn't seem like I'm doing very good with the story. Now, the biggest reason I have for even starting the story was to see how good I was with story writing, which is a good skill to have when you want to make video games for a living, and besides this chapter-where the last few parts were hurried and not really important, and the parts that mattered needed such little detail that it was hard to make this a long chapter-I think that I've been doing a good enough job. Now, that's just my evaluation, but it is always good to get a second opinion, which takes me to my greatest concern: I want more reviews. I want to know what you liked and what you didn't, saying "it's so awesome" doesn't really help anything other than my ego. I would also like there to be many reviews, the more I get the more likely I will want to continue writing. I want to start a high-school fic too, so I need to know if I've already built up to that, and if not, then if I ever can. Please review, for this chapter and the previous ones, and may be you could give me some ideas for the high school fic (They would be sixteen at the start, so it can be as serious or lighthearted as one would want, and adding in an entity like the Kyuubi would be cool, I liked what Born did on his story called 'Cursed', so mabey something like that).<p> 


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